Published on: 26 December, 2023
Outdated literature review has become a major problem in published business research and terribly plagued the Literature of Management Sciences. To present the current theoretical and empirical reflections on the hypothesized study relationships, it is essential to develop arguments and support the study relationships by reviewing latest studies. It is recommended by Authority figures that studies, pertaining to the research topic, published in the last five (5) must be reviewed and included in the Literature Review section of a Research Article to present a (possibly) complete view on the phenomenon under consideration.
This article "The geography of female small business survivorship: Examining the roles of proportional representation and stakeholders" authored by Kalnins & Williams (2021) and published in the "Strategic Management Journal" (Clarivate SSCI Impact Factor for 2022: 8.78; Scopus Q1), is a best instance of outdated literature review. The hypotheses development section completely missed to provide the latest picture on the hypothesized relationships. Literature from 2015-2019 was missing. Authors should avoid such practices and Editors of journals should identify such issues.
As mentioned in the published article, it was received on 10 November, 2019, revised on 10 January, 2021, and accepted on 12 January, 2021. We can logically assume that the article was reviewed by the journal sometime in 2020. We cannot believe that Literature from the last five (5) years i.e., 2015-2019 was unavailable or nothing was published that can underpin the hypothesized relationships. Are there any reasons why the literature from the last five (5) years was not reviewed and included in the study? It is hard to believe!
In the section “Stakeholders”, Hypothesis was not proposed by citing the latest literature from 2015 to 2019. In addition, no theoretical support was provided for hypothesized relationships. 2010 was the last year the authors cited while this study was completed in November 2019. The authors missed important literature, for instance, Belda & Cabrer-Borrás (2018), Solesvik, Iakovleva, & Trifilova (2019) etc.
To develop the hypothesis related to “Banks”, the authors completely fail to provide the latest picture of the current research and theoretical support. Nothing has been cited from 2015-2019.
Literature depicting the latest situation on the hypothesized relationship pertaining to “Customers” was not cited. Citations from 2015-2019 are completely missing.
To propose a hypothesis for “Networking Opportunities”, the relationship was not developed by citing the related literature and providing theoretical support. Only 3 articles were cited from the last 5 years, not relevant to hypothesized relationship.
We have presented our critical analysis of this article to let our readers know that even the Editors and Reviewers of mainstream business journals such as “Strategic Management Journal'' are taking outdated literature review for granted which should not be overlooked by critical analysts of published business research.
Please read the full analysed article by clicking here. (Please copy and paste the link in your browser if the given link is redirected to a wrong website.)
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