On the nature of the management-concerns diagram in the Agile Literature Review Approach

This discussion examines the nature of the management-concerns diagram in the Agile Literature Review Approach (ALRA) and how to decide on its appropriateness:

In the Agile Literature Review Approach, the management-concerns diagram represents a chosen set of management issues (i.e. factors related to the organizational environment, organizational capabilities and business outcomes/solutions) that (i) the organization management team is so unhappy about or, alternatively, so exited about that they strongly feel that they need to be addressed in the near future and (ii) the researcher is also interested to conduct research on them. It can be further clarified in the form of the following diagram:

Referring to the diagram, the management-concerns diagram covers a set of components on management concerns that are at the same time of intellectual interest to the researcher [i.e. the shaded area in the diagram]. In the actual construction of such a diagram, the researcher could introduce a few additional related variables about the client system's environment or organizational performances/ solutions so as to make the comprehension of the set of management concerns easier. If the management-concerns diagram covers topics in the unshaded area, the overall research direction, e.g., in research objectives, literature review focus and research design, etc., is also not appropriate. In a nutshell, there has to be a congruity between the researcher-preference-based individualized and client-concerns-specific considerations in final the management-concerns diagram adopted for an applied business research project for such a diagram to be adopted.


Note: in the discussion, management issues are those the management team is unhappy about or excited about, yet not feeling that they need to be addressed in the near future; management concerns are similar to management issues, except that the management team feels strongly that they need to be addressed in the near future. Thus, management concerns provide a much stronger justification base for launching a research project with an explicit goal to intellectually respond to them, ultimately with some recommendations to cope with them. This then explains why management-concerns diagram should mainly cover management concerns rather than management issues.

Comments on the overall process to conduct literature review on a theoretical framework [level 1a] component

Comments on the overall process to conduct literature review on a theoretical framework [level 1a] component in the ALRA:

The overall process

1. Describe how the academic ideas together enable you to perform the component evaluation task. 

2. Discuss how the academic ideas are able to clarify the nature, e.g., meaning, of the evaluation task and the academic concepts involved. 

3. Examine the importance of the lead model, including its ability to synthesize, if feasible, the rest of the academic ideas involved.. 

4. Evaluate how the chosen analytical concepts (academic ideas) enable you to more specifically, including more systematically, perform the evaluation task.

An example of mgt-concerns components by zones on the staff turnover theme (ALRA)

The following is an example of management-concerns components by zones on the staff turnover theme in the Agile Literature Review Approach (ALRA) subject:


Zone 1: Environmental driver [internal environment related]

Component name: error-prone and stressful working environment due to high staff turnover


Zone 2: Organizational capabilities:

Component name: management concern on the existing management capability to manage staff turnover


Zone 3: Outcomes/ solutions:

Component name: management concern on the poor corporate financial results, considered to be partly due to the insufficient management capability to manage staff turnover

Dissertation report: main ALRA deliverables

Dissertation report: main Agile literature Review Approach (ALRA) deliverables 

Chapter 1 - Introduction: 
*Management-concerns diagram 

Chapter 2 – Literature review: 
*Theoretical framework [level 0] [level 1a] [level 1b] 
Level 0: components with labels 
Level 1a: Level 0 + academic ideas per components
Level 1b: Level 0 + research tasks using the academic ideas 

Chapter 3 – Research methods: 
*Theoretical framework [1c: either 1a + research methods mapping or 1b + research methods mapping] 
Level 1c: Level 1a or 1b, with research methods mapping

The 3 zones in the main diagrams used in the Agile Literature Review Approach (ALRA)

The 3 zones in the main diagrams used in the Agile Literature Review Approach (ALRA) are:

Zone 1: Environmental drivers: topics (e.g. factors, drivers or concerns) that are related to external and internal environments. As factors, drivers and issues, they exert much influences on certain organizational capabilities under examination, as relatively independent and nonmanipulable variables.

Zone 2: Organizational capabilities: topics related to certain organizational (both internal or inter-organizational) capability domains, such as innovation capability, managerial leadership competence, and supply chain management capability, etc..The prime attention is on their quality and competence status which have impact relevance to the organizational performance outcomes (e.g. financial/ non-financial and successfulness to cope with identified management concerns, and effectiveness of existing and potential organizational improvement initiatives.

Zone 3: Outcomes/ solutions: These cover both (i) outcome status on the organizational financial and nonfinancial performances and successfulness to deal with chosen management concerns and (ii) effectiveness of existing and potential solutions being considered to address the chosen management concerns.

The three zones are related in the sense, broadly speaking, that components/ factors in zone 1 influence components/ factors in zone 2; and components/ factors in zone 2 influence those in zone 3.

This is shown in the following diagram

Examples of components for the three zones are: 

Zone 1: Environmental drivers: Intensity of competition in the external environment; Customers becoming more demanding and sophisticated on service quality offered by the company. Internal environmental drivers could be the existing employee profile, e.g. ageing employees or millennial employees, and their job expectations.

Zone 2: Organizational capabilities: innovation capability, supply chain management capability, business intelligence management capability, and managerial leadership competence.

Zone 3: Outcomes/ solutions: (i) outcomes-related: return on equity, customer loyalty status, size of market share, staff morale status, employee commitment status, employee job stress level status, staff turnover status; and (ii) solutions-related (existing and new): service-automation project, flexible job arrangement initiative, and new e-service application.

Examples of management-concerns diagrams and theoretical frameworks are provided in other blog articles, thus not examined in this blog article.

Steps for literature review of an academic idea in ALRA

Steps for literature review of an academic idea in the Agile Literature Review Approach (ALRA):

How to analyze a research method finding in ALRA

How to analyze a research method finding in the Agile Literature Review Approach (ALRA):