Posted: June 27th, 2015

Synthesis_of_Current_Literature

ANISFIELD SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

Synthesis of Current Literature*

This assignment helps to develop skills at drawing out key ideas from multiple intellectual works, so that after you are finished, you have a better understanding of the subject than if you had read only one article. In completing this assignment, remember that you always have a larger question or issue you are addressing by looking at multiple articles about a topic (e.g. productivity, motivation, job satisfaction). Always remember your larger purpose, as that becomes your compass for organizing your work.

Assignment Format

Your first page will be a Cover Page (which is not included toward the page count) with this information: Name, Date, Course/Section, and Assignment Title.

Your assignment is a 2 – 3 page analysis in hardcopy and in digital form, typed and single spaced, in Times New Roman 12-point font, with 1 inch margins for each page. Provide full citations for all articles you used. Follow the APA citation style for the citations you give.

A written synthesis of ideas contained in multiple intellectual works is organized around issues; not around individual articles or a single author. Therefore, your assignment will follow this format:

• An introductory paragraph will lay out the key issues to be examined, and those issues will be areas of agreement and disagreement between the articles you are writing about.
• Each paragraph in the body of your written synthesis focuses on one or more issues, as the subject(s) of the paragraph. No paragraph should focus on analyzing or summarizing ideas presented in a single article; grades will be very low for “synthesis” assignments that are written in the manner of a series of disconnected article summaries.

Think critically about the areas of agreement and disagreement between the articles, and seek to write persuasively to convince the reader. Use evidence in the form of APA in-text citations[1] to support your claims.

• Finally, a concluding paragraph will summarize the key issues addressed, and explore the (preferably non-obvious) takeaways for managers that you were able to draw out by synthesizing good ideas contained in the articles you read.
• Your last page will be a “Works Cited” page (which is not included toward the page count) with APA-compliant references[2]. Staple your paper in the upper left-hand corner.

What not to do for this assignment – Do not look at a set of articles about a given topic as competitors, from among which you pick one article to serve as your one and only guide. Instead, look for what is helpful in each, to synthesize all of them together so that you reach a deeper state of understanding about the issues being addressed.

Article Selection

Choose 3 to 5 scholarly articles and/or high-quality practitioner articles related to a specific, single, and fairly narrow subject area in management theory and practice. These articles must have some meaningful disagreement about some issue of importance to the practice of management. Choose a topic from the following list:

Organization Performance, Organization Development, Organization Structure, Culture, Diversity and Inclusiveness, Performance Management, Change Management, Leadership, Training and Development, Communication, Trust, Commitment, Retention and Turnover, Power, Politics, Conflict, Decision Making, Job Design, Social Cognitive Career Theory, Productivity, Motivation, Job Satisfaction

Possible examples include articles presenting different views about team-building, about the merits of using path-goal leadership theory and Fiedler’s contingency theory to decide how to lead, about how managers might make practical use of expectancy theory or intrinsic motivation, and so on …

Check with me if you’re uncertain about whether or not disagreement exists between the articles you collect. Provide me with either a copy of your articles or links to them, when asking questions.

You may pick a maximum of one of the articles assigned as readings for this course to be one of the three to five articles you use to carry out this assignment.

Articles must have been published in the last ten years. Use only articles from the following sources:

Harvard Business Review, Business Horizons, California Management Review, Sloan Management Review, McKinsey Quarterly, Academy of Management Perspectives, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal

If you have an article in mind from a different source that you would like to use, then you need to pre-approve it. Articles from other sources, and not pre-approved, will not be accepted for this assignment.

Helpful Tips

Seek to write clearly, objectively, and use a professional, rather than a casual tone. Remember, for this assignment, I want statements that are based on evidence (references), not opinions or speculation.

Papers must be organized by ideas and issues, not by articles. For example,

WRONG – The Jones article says that retaining employees requires pay, interesting work, and an easy commute, but that compensation is most important (Jones, 2008). Smith says that employee retention requires high pay, but most importantly, that employees maintain satisfaction with their jobs (Smith, 2010).

The problem here is that we’ve organized around the article, not the issue. Also, note that stating “The Jones article says” is incorrect. Authors state things, not articles. Look at how I’ve rewritten the above example to make the comparison more explicit.

RIGHT – Jones believes that the primary factor in retaining employees is pay, while Smith states that retention most importantly requires that employees maintain satisfaction with their jobs (Jones, 2008; Smith, 2010).

In general, do not refer to the article titles or journal names in the paper. For example:

WRONG – Joe Smith in the Academy of Management wrote an article entitled “Leadership Qualities”, in which he states that leaders should focus on five things: … (Smith, 2010).

The Works Cited page lists detailed information about the reference, so it’s not required in the paper. Also, refer to authors by last name, not by their full names. So, for the example given above, you would write:

RIGHT – Smith states that leaders should focus on five things: … (Smith, 2010).

If your 1^st paragraph summarizes key issues addressed in your chosen articles, and raises some substantive and meaningful points of similarity and difference between your chosen articles, then you’re heading in a good direction.

If your 2^nd through 2^nd-to-last paragraphs focus, in turn, on one or more of the issues given in your introduction, then you’re likely to be on the right track.

If your concluding paragraph contains a summary of ideas discussed earlier, and presents a summary of what the articles you are synthesizing, taken together, are telling us about a subject (i.e.: how to make good decisions, how to handle inclusiveness / diversity issues, how to lead effectively, forming or managing teams, …), then you are likely to be on the right track.

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[1]               e.g. (Nuñez & Hungary 2015)

[2]              e.g. Nuñez, E. & Hungary, I. M. (2015). The New Theory of Everything: An Examination of an Integrative Approach, Harvard Business Review, March, 1(1): 109.

For more help with APA see Purdue Online Writing Lab: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/