Sunday, October 19, 2014

Literature review: first draft completed

I wrote ten days ago that "I've been using this time to progress on the literature review, and indeed my aim is to complete a draft by the end of this holiday period which I can then send to my supervisor". Yesterday was the end of that holiday period, and at exactly 12:15pm, I finished reviewing the final paper which I wanted to include in the review.

The review opens a general, explanatory section which covers topics such as ERP history, future (mobile devices), production strategies, misfits and training. Some papers are quoted and some are reviewed critically; it's difficult to assign a count for the number of papers which were reviewed for this section, but at least 30 papers were referenced.

Hereon, the picture is clearer. There are 7 previous literature surveys reviewed, 24 ERP implementation case studies, 6 papers on computer self-efficacy, 9 on end user computer satisfaction, 7 on cognitive fit, 3 on user ownership, 4 on perceived organisational support and 9 on cognitive style - a total of 63 papers. The whole review weighs in at 93 pages. Obviously, I wasn't trying to be brief.

Today I'll send it off to my supervisor then wait a week for him to wade through it and produce his feedback. I would have preferred feedback after finishing each section, so that I could correct any systematic errors, but he wanted to receive a completed object. It's clear to me that this is only a first draft; there are probably too many direct quotes and the supervisor may feel that there are sections which need bolstering, especially in what might be termed 'management impact'. There are references to this scattered around, but maybe they need to be collected in one place.

Now I need a week's holiday in order to recuperate. For fun, I printed a paper which I found on serendipity; I've only read the beginning of it but it seems interesting.

I note that several cited papers came from one journal, Computers in Human Behaviour. I was thinking that maybe I should try reading this journal on as each issue is published - just for fun!

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