A research objective as an agenda item to do literature review: an example

 A research objective as an agenda item to do literature review (in the agile literature review approach): an example.

Research objectives are items that appear in theoretical framework level-0. In the context of theoretical framework level-0, a research objective serves as an agenda item to do literature review. An illustrative example is as follows:

Research objective (also known as a high-level research task): an example:

To evaluate the business model development capability of ABC Ltd (a startup). {also a core-focus-domain item located in zone 2 [organizational capabilities] in this case}

Now, go to google scholar to perform literature search with these key words

1. key words "Business model" (especially with "business model canvas"), select 2 articles on business model to extract two academic ideas via literature review.

2. key words "business model development", select 2 articles on business model development to extract two academic ideas via literature review.

3. key words "business model development startup", select 2 articles on business model development as related to startup to extract two academic ideas via literature review.

4. key words "business model development capability", select 1-2 articles on business model development capability to extract one to two academic ideas via literature review.

5. key words "core competence", select 1-2 articles on core competence to extract one to two academic ideas via literature review.

Having gone through this literature search exercise, you should have 8-10 articles containing 8-10 academic ideas to carry out a literature review. This literature review outcome (e.g., the intellectual learning gained, the construction of theoretical framework level-1a and the ability to write up dissertation report chapter 2: Literature Review) will inform you to conduct your high-level research task {i.e. to meet the research objective "To evaluate the business model development capability of ABC Ltd (a startup)"}.

This example illustrates how to make use of the key words in the research objective to carry out the literature search. The student should also carry out this literature search exercise on the academic publisher websites. Major examples are as follows:

Academic publisher websites:

1. Sciencedirect.

2. Proquest.

3. Emerald.insight.

4. Wiley online library.

5. Taylor and Francis online.

6. Sage journals.

7. Springer.

8. pdfdrive. [ebooks]

This example also explains why a research objective (in the context of the theoretical framework level-0) is also called an agenda item to do literature review (comprising both literature search and literature review).