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120 Fresh and Thought-Provoking Topics for Literature Reviews in Different Disciplines

A literature review is an account of the scholarly works published on a topic. It is different from an annotated bibliography – and far more interesting at that. Instead of being just a list of summaries, a literature review synthesizes the information from all available sources in an overall relationship to your guiding concept. This may be the problem you are discussing, a statement you are arguing, a theory you are verifying, etc.

The goals of a literature review may vary:

giving a historical overview of the research in the field
summarizing the existing state of the topic
finding a problem or a gap in the research field
developing a new theory, etc.

That is why good literature review topics are often formulated as research questions. This type of paper is not an easy writing. You will need to parse immense volumes of information, synthesize and summarize coherently. You also need to devote plenty of time to reading.

This post contains a list of literature review topics suggested for various subjects. However, when choosing the most fitting one to dig into, ask yourself, what are the passions that you can apply to this research? This assignment will take a while, so you will need more than just a good study discipline to soldier on. A bit of enthusiasm and intrinsic motivation will get you much farther.

Literature Review Topics Examples on English and World Literature

Some of the suggestions in this post are linked to literature review examples in our free database. By clicking on a title, you get to a corresponding sample page, where you can read the entire text. If the topic you like isn't linked, but you would like to read an example, you can order it. We will arrange the most qualified paper writer to prepare it for you exclusively.

Ready? Let's start with topics for literature review papers on English and World Literature.

Phoenix as a symbol for endurance in a worn path
The novel Intuition by Allegra Goodman
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark through Girard's Lens
Ender's Game by an Orson Scott Card
Depiction of freedom and happiness in Brave New World
Feminism and Post-Colonialism in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games
Rationality, logic, and mathematics in the novel The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time
Victims of their time as a character type in the World literature
The last days of Judas Iscariot : a play by Stephen Adly Guirgis
The use of symbolism in Kafka's prose
Naturalism in American literature
Grotesque and Sublime in the prose of Edgar Allan Poe

Lit Review Topic Ideas on Science and Technology

Next are some literature review topic ideas on science and technology.

Electronic library and effects of its implementation
Benjamin Franklin: scientist and inventor
Virtual Reality, science fiction, and society today
Science, Technology, and Society as a field of knowledge
Frederick Winslow Taylor and the principles of scientific management
What is the future of work
Concepts of science and technology
The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis and influence of technological advancement on man and nature
Types of machine learning
Internet of Things and biometrics: implications, benefits, threats
Emotional intelligence and natural language processing
SmartCity projects that have already been implemented and their lessons

As the field is vast, we can barely scratch the surface with these suggestions. To help you with brainstorming, here are a few tips on how to choose good topics for a literature review yourself:

Make sure the topic ties nicely with class requirements as well as your interests
Do some preliminary research to see if there is enough literature on your topic
Scale up if the information is scarce or down if there are too many sources to handle
Use sources recommended for reading in the class materials
Supplement the list with only trustworthy scholarly sources

Follow these guidelines, and you are on a path to some great ideas!

Psychology Literature Review Topics

When brainstorming topics on psychology, don't forget about the subdisciplines: biopsychology, social, educational, organizational, etc. If the suggestions below won't be enough, try looking for inspiration in Biology, Sociology, Education, or Business. The most exciting topics are often at the intersection of different areas of knowledge!

Tricyclic antidepressants vs. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) in treatment of depression
Stress, its causes, effects, and coping strategies
The family system and psychology
Tibetan compassion practices: working with terror, trauma, and transcendence
Behaviorism psychology
Culture and psychopathology
Correlation between diet and cognitive functions in primary school students
The evolutionary role of phobias and intrusive thoughts
Popular psychology and its implications
PTSD in mass disasters survivors: immediate relief and long-term assistance
Cults and vulnerable populations
False memories and gaslighting

Nursing Literature Review Topics

Nursing lit review topics are probably the most diverse in scale, as you can see from the examples below. They can describe a larger issue or a concrete solution applied to a narrowly defined problem. Following this principle, you can modify our lit review topics suggestions zooming out or in on the subject material.

Legalization of medical marijuana and its effects on the youth
Health effects of fiber: research findings
Achieving higher levels of education and training for nurses
Organic foods and cardiovascular disease
The importance of Central Venous Line (CVL) and Central Venous Access Devices (CVAD)
What effects do different types of music have on humans and their mental health?
The use of laboratory-grown organs for transplantation
The role of xylitol in alleviating dry mouth
The detection of tar and nicotine content of cigarette smoke extract using HPLC
Rheumatoid arthritis: etiology, diagnosis, vulnerable populations
Mobility aids for the elderly and quality of life
The role of play in the recuperation of hospitalized children

Education Literature Review Topics

To get more ideas from these literature review topic examples, try isolating an issue and put it in another educational context. For instance, student motivation in primary school vs. middle school or sleep deprivation in high school vs. college. This should give you plenty of material for brainstorming.

Simulation education for crisis prevention program
A critical consideration of the new pedagogy in its relation to modern science
Lack of students interest in studying science
Discovery-based learning and student-centered learning with a focus on mathematics at a high school level
The adverse effects of sleep deprivation on academic performance: a college student's struggle
Gender bias in special education programs
Higher education for senior citizens: challenges and best practices
Significant challenges of the teaching profession in the US
Factors contributing to international student mobility
Student motivation in private vs. state colleges
Benefits and challenges of homeschooling for students and families
Correlation between workload, stress levels, and self-esteem in middle-school students

Sociology Literature Review Topics

The best advice on finding current sociology topics is to look at the challenges your community faces. Become the first one to notice and address these issues!

Are video games affecting our current and future students ?
Ways to prevent social media bullying
Spanking of children in the USA
The relation of poverty and exposure to crime in adolescent men
Transgender discrimination
The link between science and Utopia in Utopia and the New Atlantis
Effectiveness of group therapy in social work
Peer pressure, depression, and causes of suicide in the adolescents
Religious separatism social issues connected with it
Causes and effects of domestic abuse
Physical appearance and social status
Race, nationality, ethnicity, and identity

Political Science Literature Review Topics

Political science is one of the more formal disciplines on this list. Being heavy with abstract concepts, it doesn't lend itself easily to casual brainstorming. Well, at least start with these:

Electoral College, its functions, and role in public life
Why American and the British IPE are so different
Contingency planning
Effects of political gerrymandering
American political parties
The present urban regimes in Canada
International policies and domestic regulations: precedence and clashes
Tolerance as a political virtue
Grassroots activism and its impact on state and federal law
National security and constitutional freedoms
Historical analysis of anarchism
The effect of social media on civic engagement

Criminal Justice Literature Review Topics

Criminal justice is a complex field. It's ripe with variance and challenges – which is good for topic ideas at least. And you have state, federal, and international levels to add more variables.

Juvenile justice and the Missouri model
Car-related crime in the USA
An analysis of the impact of sexual harassment/sexual assault in the military
The process of the arbitration without the involvement of national courts
Serial killers and profiling
Policing and criminal justice systems
Psychological effects of cyberbullying on adolescents
Sexual human trafficking from the Central America region
Human sex-trafficking: the Canadian perspective
Gender and racial bias in criminal investigations
Possible ethical and legal dilemmas of using sniffer dogs
Sting operations vs. entrapment: ethics and regulations

Chemistry and Biology Literature Review Topics

Biology is fascinating. It has something for everyone: from biochemistry and genetics to ecosystems and nature preservation. Here are some suggestions to guide your choice:

Brain size correlation
Haruko Obokata, ethics of stem cells research, and scientific misconduct
Genomic and molecular genetics major and its perspectives for students
DNA use in mass disasters
DNA detection from dried blood spots
Captive breeding of marine mammals: pros and cons
The Dynamics of ER and mitochondria
Biomarkers in gastric cancer treatment
The chemistry behind gene splicing
Carcinogens and hyper-processed foods
Primates and monkeys as potential sources of novel zoonotic infections
Natural gases, ecosystems, and the global warming

Business and Marketing Literature Review Topics

Finally, here are some business and marketing topics as well. These disciplines might be relatively new, but they are among the most dynamic and information-rich – which means great fun to explore.

Effectiveness of neuromarketing in comparison to traditional marketing methods
Green supply chain management
Effectiveness of e-marketing to non-profit making organizations
The value of information
Shareholder engagement/activism and corporate performance
The relationship between ethics, stress, and productivity in the workplace
The role of integrity in business
Client confidentiality and its role in a prosperous business
Businesses, their impact on the community, and social responsibility
Startup fundraising stages
Innovative marketing in the age of instant feedback: risks and possibilities
Strategies for staff motivation

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Methodology

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

Search for relevant literature
Evaluate sources
Identify themes, debates, and gaps
Outline the structure
Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

Quick Run-through
Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

Your university’s library catalogue
Google Scholar
Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
EconLit (economics)
Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

What question or problem is the author addressing?
What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
What are the key theories, models, and methods?
Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
What are the results and conclusions of the study?
How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

Most research has focused on young women.
There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Sampling methods
Simple random sampling
Stratified sampling
Cluster sampling
Likert scales
Reproducibility

Statistics

Null hypothesis
Statistical power
Probability distribution
Effect size
Poisson distribution

Research bias

Optimism bias
Cognitive bias
Implicit bias
Hawthorne effect
Anchoring bias
Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An annotated bibliography is a list of source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a paper .

Cite this Scribbr article

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McCombes, S. (2023, September 11). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved April 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/

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Business Research Paper Topics – Complete List

Table of contents

1 What are good business topics for a research paper?
2 Interesting business-related topics
3 Business management topics
4 Current topics in international business
5 Business ethics topics
6 Business intelligence topics
7 Topics On Business Communication
8 Other good business research topics

What are good business topics for a research paper?

To narrow down the field of business research topics for college students, consider the goals of your course and pay particular attention to the curriculum of your course. For an MBA program, you’ll likely need to explore undiscovered territory and report on your findings. In this case, you can find inspiration from the local corporate news on Television or online and derive a relevant topic. For the undergrad student, demonstrating a strong understanding of course material will go a long way to motivate your professors to give you a high grade. Whichever academic level you study, there is an abundance of areas to explore. But a common issue is often, students are deeply interested in a subject but just don’t know how to write about it. This is where a writing service comes into play. You can leverage the help of seasoned professionals who are up-to-date on contemporary corporate affairs. They will write a paper for you and guarantee the quality of their work. So if you’re concerned about your GPA, leverage these services to get the job done for you.

Interesting business-related topics

At times, the courses you take are important but may not jump off your page and capture the reader with interest. Such is the reality of some research papers topics . But there are some strategies you could take, for instance, using argumentative business essay topics is a great way to draw in readers to appreciate your work more. You can use any of the following and turn your research paper into an issue of debate that will have your teachers thinking of the effort you put forth to make a compelling paper. For sure, you’ll also be rewarded with a high grade.

Business management topics

Positive Effects of Diversity in the Workplace
Methods of Reducing Overhead with Enterprise Planning
Using Typology for Better Team Management
Influence of Corporate Culture on Employee Retention
Valuating Enterprise Priorities for Optimal Outcomes
Using Incentive Programs to Meet Objectives
Results of Agile Project Management in Traditional Companies
Lean Operational Structures – Results Without Bureaucracy
ABC Costing to Build Efficient Budgets
Practical Methods of Delivering Concepts to Production
Managing Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace
Evaluating Human Capital for Optimization
Risk Management and Contingency Planning
Negotiation Strategies of Effective Leaders
Formulating a Product Personality that Speaks to Consumers

Current topics in international business

Methods of Effective Remote Management
Navigating Tariffs and Taxation
Assurance services to control waste
International Supply Chain and Inventory Management
Developing a Corporate Structure in an Offshore Company
Doing Business in Countries with High Corruption
Enforcing International Contracts
Assessing an Offshore Labor Pool
Establishing a Competitive Advantage in the Global Market
How to avoid Currency Risk with International Trade
Risk Management in Developing Countries
Using Time Zones for 24 Hour Productivity
Overcoming Cultural Differences
International Compliance and Taxation
Environmental Issues With a Global Business

Business ethics topics

Maintaining Compliance with Independent Contractors
Consumer Rights to Privacy and Confidentiality
Monitoring Employees in the Office
Affirmative Action with Recruitment
Building an Inclusive Company
Roles and Responsibilities of Teen Employees
Corporate Impacts on the Environment
Insider Trading and the Rights of Shareholders
Establishing Positive Community Relations
Managing a Socially Responsible Enterprise

Business intelligence topics

Automation of Routine Practices
Evaluating the Cost versus Reward of AI
How Big Data can Work for any Company
Contemporary Predictive Analysis
Validating Data Quality
Market Intelligence to Find Your Niche
Using Case Studies to Solve Problems in the Corporate World
Real-Time Intelligence and the Business Cycle
Setting the Right KPIs
Data Security To Safeguard Against Hackers

Topics On Business Communication

Communicating with International Teams
Designing a Communications Document
Setting Meeting Agendas
Benefits of a RACI Matrix
Developing Soft Skills with Employees
Expressing Empathy for Better Relations
Methods of Constructive Mentoring
Modern applications of the Customer eXperience
Motivational Speaking Strategies
Finding Team Players Through Interviewing
Enterprise Investigative Techniques
Recognizing Identity in Communication
Streamlined Change Management
Working with Aggressive Individuals
Documenting Interactions for Better Performance

Readers also enjoyed

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The Top 10 Most Interesting Business Research Topics

Interesting and relevant business research topics are vital for students pursuing an MBA or an undergraduate degree in business . Aside from helping you get excellent grades in school, they can help you understand business problems and come up with solutions to vital business research questions.

Choosing a single business research paper topic can be daunting. There are tons of exciting topics to choose from. This article provides several examples of business research paper topics that can inspire your next paper or research project.

Find your bootcamp match

What makes a strong business research topic.

A strong business research paper topic is clear, concise, well-phrased, and easy to understand. It is devoid of unnecessary jargon and may contain relevant business terms and widely known abbreviations. It also lays the foundation for the entire paper, summarizing the scope and aim of the business research project.

Tips for Choosing a Business Research Topic

Brainstorm: When choosing a research topic, begin by brainstorming topics that strike your interest or that you have substantial knowledge about. Make a list of ideas as you go.
Consider keywords and hot topics: Think about trends and hot topics in your field and academic network. Skimming the table of contents in a recently published business journal can be very helpful in this regard.
Research: Next, read up on your keywords to help you form possible topics for your research paper. Conduct a literature review to see what other researchers have discovered and how your research can add to the existing body of knowledge.
Sort your ideas: After your preliminary research, take your ideas and sort them into categories. For instance, keep topics on business law separate from international business topics.
Narrow down: Finally, narrow down your options. At this stage, consider the cost of running the project, your level of expertise, your interest, and the availability of research materials. Eventually, you’ll arrive at a single ideal research topic.

What’s the Difference Between a Research Topic and a Research Question?

A research topic is a subject that forms the foundation of your research paper—for example, the impact of gender discrimination. Your topic scope here may be fairly broad.

By contrast, a research question articulates a specific problem that your research aims to solve. Answering research questions should be the objective of your study or thesis. One example of a strong research question is “How do cultural contexts affect the impact of gender discrimination in privately owned companies?”

How to Create Strong Business Research Questions

Creating strong business research questions follows the same rules as choosing strong business research topics. However, this time you have to ask the following questions: how, why, and who? Research questions should relate to your topic of study. They should be clear, straightforward, and answerable.

2. Modern Methods of Increasing Employee Productivity

Monetary incentives, healthy work environments, and excellent work-life balance keep workers motivated and improve productivity. This research can explore the pros and cons of each method and its potential implications on employee motivation and morale. You can use data analytics methods to assess the effectiveness of these strategies.

3. Brand Influencing and Social Media Marketing Strategies

The International Chamber of Commerce formulated the international code of conduct on direct selling to guide local and international business marketing operations to ensure fairness in highly competitive business environments. Such online marketing operations include social media marketing and brand influencing.

4. Analyzing the Role of Copyrights and Trademarks in Business Transactions

Copyright, patent, and trademark policy are essential legal doctrines that prevent business people from unfairly profiting from others’ creations. When two businesses enter into a transaction, several potential issues could arise. One such issue is the protection of intellectual property. The purpose of this research is to explore the role copyrights and trademarks play in maintaining fair business transactions.

5. Analyzing the Structure of Transactions and the Role of a Director’s Guarantee in Business Law

Transactions, specifically in business law, play a significant role in the stability of companies. This paper on business law aims to analyze business laws and the structure of transactions. It will also recognize the role of a director’s guarantee in ensuring these aspects function to maintain the stability of companies in the American business sector.

6. Challenges to Transforming Small Local Businesses into Global Business Brands

Scaling a start-up or a small family business into a global brand involves several factors, including financing and financial management , technology, management, and the business environment. By studying international brands like Walmart and Spanx, you can identify core challenges that impede scaling and suggest solutions ranging from innovation management and technological innovation to a possible change in government policies.

7. Ethical Issues in Modern Business Management

Business ethics is a core aspect of business management . It defines the right and wrong ways of conducting business and guides business managers in the day-to-day running of their enterprises. With this research topic, you can explore ethical issues a business leader faces in the modern era, such as business corruption, harassment, and discrimination.

8. The Economic Development of Developing Economies in the Emerging Digital Economy

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s 2021 report revealed a fast-rising global data-driven digital economy. It also sparked several questions regarding the divide between developing economies and their developed counterparts. Some areas of focus were poor internet connection and lack of technological infrastructure.

9. The Role of Business Negotiation in Driving Sales Performance

With this topic, you can focus on the role of different negotiation tactics in achieving desired outcomes for both the organization and the customer. Managers can use these findings to help their team members negotiate more effectively and achieve better results.

10. The Role of Social Entrepreneurship in Societal Transformation

Social entrepreneurs are business start-ups formed with the primary aim of solving a societal problem and upholding moral principles, turning profit-making into a lower priority than it might be otherwise. You can study the business plans and business models of these kinds of ventures and highlight their roles in bringing about sustainable development and other forms of positive social change.

Business Research Questions

Do employee diversity and internal business communication play an essential role in productivity?
How can small companies impact global change?
What are effective strategies for maintaining vastly diversified organizations?
What role does human resource management play in ensuring proper crisis management in small businesses?
What is the role of start-ups in global business?

Choosing the Right Business Research Topic

Choosing the right business topic can be challenging, but it is essential to writing a compelling paper. Make sure to pick a topic that interests you. Also, ensure that your topic meets your professor’s requirements for the assignment.

Having a good research topic is the first step to writing an excellent research paper because it lays the foundation for the entire piece. Conduct in-depth research and take advantage of any resources available to you to facilitate the process.

Business Research Topics FAQ

The difference between quantitative research and qualitative research is that quantitative research uses numerical data to analyze problems, and it relies on statistical sampling and mathematical models to arrive at conclusions. On the other hand, qualitative business research collects data through interviews, focus groups, and observations.

You can find strong business communication research paper topics on research websites like Google Scholar and ResearchGate. You can also check many other online resources for suggestions on dissertation topics in business communication.

When starting a business, you should research your industry, target market, and competitors. It is also necessary to study business law, organizational behavior, and financial management.

Some examples of business research questions on racial and gender discrimination in the workplace include:

How does implicit bias impact employees and businesses?
What can companies do to prevent or mitigate discrimination in the workplace?
How can we create a more inclusive workplace for all employees?
What are the best practices for handling discrimination complaints?

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105 Literature Review Topics + How-to Guide [2024]

A literature review is a variant of curtsy in scientific circles. It presents your acknowledgment that you are not the first to tackle the issue. Your predecessors have made progress in answering your research question, and you plan to start from the point they finished.

The picture contains a definition of a literature review.

This article features examples of literature review topics on multiple knowledge areas. Additionally, you will find exhaustive disambiguation of all the types of a literature review, as well as its purposes, definition, outline, and formatting.

🔝 Top 15 Topics
✍️ Writing Tips
Political Science
Criminal Justice

🔗 References

🔝 top 15 literature review topics.

What does the science say about extraterrestrial life?
Redesigning organisms in synthetic biology: Where are we at now?
Equality of human rights at the international level.
Why do genes happen to be active or inactive?
Legalizing physician-assisted suicide.
Can an adult person change their native language?
The most efficient study programs.
The ethics of using surveillance cameras.
The effect of reading fiction on your brain.
British imperialism in India.
What is kindness: A philosophical approach.
Modern technologies can sift out fake news.
Multiculturalism: A romantic myth or today’s reality?
The demographics of liberal worldview in the US.
Chronic fatigue: Literature review and hypotheses.

✍️ Literature Review Writing Tips

Speaking of a literature review , the definition is too broad to be used as writing guidance. It is an overview of credible materials on a particular research question. A literature review usually becomes chapter 1 in dissertations and theses , allowing to explore the current knowledge on the topic. It evaluates academic and professional articles, journal publications, books, and web-based resources.

A literature review is an indispensable part of a research paper. It serves many purposes, some of which are not evident.

What Is the Purpose of a Literature Review?

To draw the background context;
To compare your results with previous research;
To justify your research methods;
To frame research gaps and show the scientific novelty of your project;
To explain the social value of your work;
To demonstrate your knowledge of the referenced literature;
To train your analytical thinking.

Types of Literature Review

Below you’ll find the 6 types of literature reviews.

Systematic Review

A systematic literature review is a most comprehensive and data-oriented type. It defines the timeframe of the selected literature and is subdivided into two categories:

Meta-analysis ( deductive research through standardized statistical procedures)
Meta-synthesis (inductive study by non-statistical qualitative methods)

Narrative Review

It is also called a traditional or critical literature review. The purpose is to summarize the available material, critique it, and identify the gaps and inconsistencies. This type works well for almost any research question, provided it is sufficiently focused and limited in time or subject matter.

Scoping Review

As the name implies, it estimates the scope of available literature on a literature review topic. Unlike a systematic literature review, which aims to find the most specific research question, this type looks for the most general one. It answers the question of what else can be researched in the field.

Theoretical Review

A theoretical literature review explores the pool of theories that have so far accumulated on a concept. It lists the existing ideas, their relationships, and gaps. The purpose is to develop hypotheses to be tested in the experimental section.

Argumentative Review

This type provides the most selective literature review to prove or refute an argument already established in the research literature. However, this is also the most biased review among all types.

Integrative Review

This literature review integrates, synthesizes, and critiques the available secondary data to develop new research frameworks and perspectives.

Systematic Review vs. Literature Review vs. Annotated Bibliography

Literature Review Outline

How long should a literature review be? It depends on the assignment requirements and your outline.

A literature review is often used as a part of a more general research paper. In such a case, you can limit yourself to the standard introduction –main body – conclusion formula.

In all the other situations, use the following literature review outline.

The picture lists the 5 components of literature review.

Introduction Trace the scope and highlight the importance of your review. Why did you choose the given topic or research question? How does it contribute to the previous study?
Methodology We have listed the types of literature review above. Depending on your purposes, select one and explain why your choice is the best. You can also specify which logic you used while choosing the sources for your review.
Discussion It is the central part of the text which compares, contrasts, and explains the relationships between various ideas you found in the bibliography items.
Conclusion Are you satisfied with the result of your work? How will it help further research? Which gaps have you spotted, and which hypothesis could you generate?
List of references As in any research paper, this is an indispensable part of your literature review. Be sure to follow the format requirements as provided below.

Literature Review Format

All citation styles require you to indicate the author’s name, book title, publication year, number of pages, and volume or issue number. This data is available in any printed edition, as publishers use it to identify their products.

It may sound simple until you discover that each citation style has a multi-page list of nuanced details specific to this format and inapplicable to any other.

Browse the guides for each of the most popular types below.

APA style is a format for scholarly documents. It is particularly popular in the fields of social and behavioral sciences. APA is well-known for its simplicity in source references. Thus, a vast majority of American universities and colleges prefer this format.

MLA style manual is an abridged version of the MLA Handbook published by the Modern Language Association. It was created for students to assist in their research aspirations. Its 8 th edition is addressed to secondary-school and undergraduate university and college teachers and students. The style is popular in humanities (modern languages, literature, cultural studies, and related disciplines).

Chicago style (also called CMS or CMOS) is a style guide for American English. The University of Chicago Press first published it in 1906. Since then, it has had 17 editions and has become one of the most popular citation styles in the US. The guide instructs on editorial practice, grammar, document preparation, formatting, and even the use of the singular “they.”

💡 Literature Review Topics

Literature review topics in education.

How can we make classrooms more inclusive ?
Flipped classroom approach.
Waldorf schools and their concept.
How do ADHD symptoms affect a student’s learning abilities?
Educational leadership.
Methods of tracking the performance of schoolchildren.
How can token economy diminish off-task behavior in students with autism?
Resegregation in US schools.
Is bilingual education realizable in contemporary schools?
Growing violence incidents in educational institutions.

Political Science Literature Review Topics

Gender cosmopolitanism in Sweden .
Security policy is based on political ideology .
The emotional effect of populism .
The theory and classification of political speeches.
Global measures in COVID-19 response.
The international politics of the Arab world.
How do we select our leaders ?
Officials in politics: Emotional labor .
Relational peace between countries.
The invisible force holding countries together.

Criminal Justice Literature Review Topics

The problematic issues of prosecution and legal enforcement in Eastern Europe.
Track the evolution of international criminal justice practices.
Crime prevention methods.
The evolution of criminology as a social science.
The cycle of domestic violence : Theory and statistics.
The patterns in child abuse perpetrators.
Randomized experimental designs in criminology .
Current measures to stop human trafficking in the US.
How should we punish environmental crimes?
Terrorism : Approaches to its definitions.

Sociology Literature Review Topics

Does coded language help us fight racial inequality ?
Workplace bullying.
International conflicts in terms of social representation theory.
Gender and sexual activity.
Is our society liberal or conservative ?
Single African American parents.
Racial salary gap in the US.
Substance abuse and health care costs for employers.
Does federal aid succeed at fighting urban poverty?
How does hate speech spur desensitization?

Nursing Literature Review Topics

Practice in the field of healthcare.
Evidence-based nursing practice.
Traumatic brain injury.
Alzheimer’s disease.
Pressure ulcers study.
Post-operative readmission rates.
Nursing ratios and nosocomial infections.
Patient fall prevention study.
Emergency room wait time.
Electronic health records.

Psychology Literature Review Topics

Parents’ experiences of caring for a child with ASD
The long-term consequences of child abuse
The neurology of depression .
Explore the psychological effects of loud noise.
Why is it so hard to accept what contradicts our beliefs?
The psychological mechanisms of compulsive eating.
Why are some people more prone to discrimination and prejudice?
Self-protection against grief .
Non-verbal communication rates in different cultures.
Love : Chemistry or feeling?

Biology Literature Review Topics

Camouflage in plants.
Color differences in male and female bird species.
Acceptability of genetic engineering.
Natural reforestation: Too long to wait.
Why are domestic plants weaker than wild ones?
Hepcidin: importance, production, regulation.
How can we edit DNA sequences ?
Which anti- COVID vaccines are the most effective and why?
Cancer : An umbrella term for many diseases.
Species that are important to our ecology.

Easy Literature Review Topics

Sustainable agriculture : Our future reality.
Vegetarianism.
The scientific background behind music therapy .
Stono revolt.
The latest findings in stopping brain aging.
Articles on cyber security of young children.
Data-driven personalization : Prospects and achievements.
Importance of the literature review in research.
Critical literature review of digital signature.
Reviewing quantitative academic literature and data.

❓ Literature Review Topics FAQ

❓ what is discussed in literature review.

A literature review discusses the texts that are the most relevant to your research question. It summarizes, compares, evaluates, and critiques the available literature to find the points of intersection and blind spots. As a result, you will develop a specific topic for further research or pose a hypothesis.

❓ What are the 3 parts of literature review?

The three parts of this academic genre are the same as those of any other research paper. The introduction explores the background and importance of the topic. The main body analyzes the selected texts. It may also contain a methodology section that explains why you chose such or another literary review type. The conclusion outlines the perspectives of your research.

❓ What are the four stages of literature review?

Formulating the problem (which topic is under study and what are its constituent parts?);
Searching the literature (making up the preliminary bibliography list to be described in the literature review);
Evaluating the data (which sources are the most significant in our understanding of the topic?);
Analyzing and interpreting the essential findings.
Literature Reviews – UNC Writing Center
Learn how to write a review of literature
Writing a Literature Review // Purdue Writing Lab
Types of Literature Reviews – Systematic Reviews
How to Conduct a Literature Review
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Business Research Topics | Best Ideas For Your Papers

What is a business research? Business research is the method of obtaining factual information in all areas of business and the use of such information to maximize sales and profit. You can do business-related research for almost anything. It is, however, vital that you aim the research at helping people or organizations make wise and informed decisions.

This article focuses on the various aspects of business research, such as business law, business ethics, business proposal, international business, business management, business speech, business debate, and controversial business topics.

Why This List of Business Research Topics?

Writing a successful business research paper starts with getting the basics right. While many think they are ready for a business research project, they somehow always get stuck at the very first step: choosing business topics. Even after trying the conventional techniques of preliminary research and brainstorming, many are still unable to come up with great business research topics. This article aims to help you find exciting business topics. The exciting thing is that we don’t just give you a small range of business-related topics to choose from – we have 100!

Here is a list of some hot business essay topics to set the ball rolling. Our list of interesting business topics makes this not just a typical list, but one to give you an outstanding business research paper. This list contains 100 examples of business research topics and will be of great help!

So if you need some business topics for a research paper or presentation, be assured that you’re in the right place!

Controversial Business Topics

Free Market Capitalism
Lower minimum wage and job creation.
Would a minimum wage trap people in poverty?
Is outsourcing an Ethical Practice?
Outsourcing: Theories versus findings.

International Business Topics

Students offering business courses should endeavour to do some international business research that addresses critical issues affecting international trade. Here are some international business research topics which will come in handy.

Surviving International Competition: A Critical Analysis of the Strategic Measures Employed by Local Companies.
International Investment: The Importance of Educating the Public on the benefits of international investment.
Business at Sea: The Importance of Instituting and Implementing Environmentally-friendly Approaches.
Transforming Small Local Businesses into widely Recognized International Brands.
Human Resources: Effective Strategies for Maintaining Largely Diversified Organizations.
Branding: Effective Strategies to Provide a Competitive Advantage for International Businesses.

Business Proposal Topics

The business culture is taking over the world today, and with it comes quite a lot of issues and concerns in how we go about our daily activity. Whether you are a business tycoon or a customer at a grocery shop, everyone is involved in some form of business. Below are some business proposal topics to help you pitch that business idea.

Economic Problems: Possible initiatives to protect small businesses.
American Business Sector: Possible solutions to the decline of trust.
Local Businesses: Providing necessary support to avoid suffocation by huge chains.
Global Unemployment: Strategies and solutions to the problem of unemployment.
Stakeholders: Their impact on the success of a business.
Employee motivation and its effect on employee performance.

Business Speech Topics

Do you have a business speech to deliver and still not sure of the topic to focus on? Here is are some general business speech topics for you!

How to think and plan strategically.
Interpersonal and Family Relations.
How to make a sales pitch.
How to Move Your Business A Generation Ahead.
Reducing and resolving conflicts in family businesses.
Leadership Development and its importance.

Business Law Topics

Business law is a thriving area of business which grabs the interest of many people. Business law helps to govern the dealings in the commercial world. We thought you might need some business law paper topics ; hence this list of current juicy research topics on business law.

Bankruptcy Fraud: Legal identification methods.
Sexual Harassment Lawsuits: Its Avoidance within the company.
Trade secrets: When does it become “too secretive”?
UK Business Laws: A Review of the Legal Standing and Protection of Creditors.
Foreign Entity Registration: A comparative review of legal guidelines and implications for foreign businesses in the UK and Europe.
Trademark infringement: Possible defences to this offence.
E-commerce Practices: US legal implications on the workforce.
Data Privacy Laws: Their impact on business operations.

Business Ethics Topics

Another exciting area of business research is business ethics. With some excellent business ethics research paper topics, you’re well on your way to writing a unique paper. Here are some juicy business ethics paper topics/business research topic examples to get the ball rolling!

Gender Discrimination: A close investigation of its impact on employee performance in an organization.
Organizational Environmental Pollution: A critical look at its effects on consumer trust levels.
Labourer Abuse: Analyzing its repercussions in the construction sector.
Profit Seeking: A critical evaluation of its impact on product quality.
Advertisements: An Expository Study of the effects of misleading advertisements on consumer trust.
Gift-giving by Pharmaceutical Representatives: Any strings attached?
Business ethics: A Philosophical approach.
Ethical issues in governing a corporation.
Ethical conflicts: Avoiding religious, political, and cultural arguments at work.

Business Communication Topics

To be successful in business, one must be able to communicate effectively in areas such as selling ideas, persuading potential customers, communicating with employees, etc. In business, communication may as well be everything! Here are ten fantastic topics for your business communication research paper!

The effect of internal business communication on the external image of a business.
The Impact of Interactive online communication on public relations outcomes.
Interpersonal Communication: The Influence of Culture on interpersonal dialogue.
The impact of Computer-mediated Interaction.
Business Communication: Exploring different mediums and channels for effective communication in business.
The effect of intercultural information exchange on closing business deals.
Business Negotiation: A language-centred activity.
Symmetrical Dialogue: A critical look at the processes involved.
Business Negotiation: Styles in intercultural dialogue.
Exploring the differences between business communication and general communication.

Business Research Topics for MBA Students

Are you an MBA student in need of business research paper topics? Here are some hot ones just for you!

Organizational Culture and its influence on innovation management.
Environmental issues and their effect on business management in the world today.
Leadership Skills and its impact on organizational control.
An analytical overview of investment strategies.
The influence of online marketing on start-ups.
Direct Marketing versus Creative Marketing.
The power of advertising on consumer behaviour.
The impact of employee turnover on Organizational profit.
Globalization and its impact on small scale industries.
The e-commerce industry and its effect on the world today.

Business Management Research Topics

With the many facets of business management, finding a hot topic could be very challenging. Here are ten great ideas for research topics in business management.

Employee benefits and its effect on employee productivity.
The intricacies of managing conflict in the work team.
Start-ups: A look into the issues that occur during business start-ups.
Excessive work: Business consequences.
The evolving nature of work teams in meeting the requirements of the future.
Leadership strategies and Inter-organizational networks.
Product and service improvement in a strategic partnership.
How to manage crises in an organization.
Impact of total quality management practices on customer retention and satisfaction.
Effective time management as a tool for organizational survival.

Business Informative Speech Topics

Are you in particular need of business informative speech topics? Then you’re in the right place! Here are ten business topics which are full of juice!

Ergonomics in the workspace: How desks, chairs, and tables affect physical poses for sedentary workers.
Why there are corporate loans and special grants for women start-ups.
Standards in Creative and Financial Accounting: What is right or wrong?
Copyright protection: The what, the why and the when.
Outsourcing to third parties: When, why and how.
Why you have to back up trade secrets with a signed confidentiality agreement.
What are the types of insurance?
The 24-hour economy: How to manage risk under pressure.
Benefits of human resources and how to develop social skills.
How safety programs and working conditions relate to productivity.

Business Persuasive Speech Topics

A persuasive speech is a speech delivered with the intent of bringing about a change in the ideas or viewpoints of others. Here are ten business compelling speech topics to wow your audience.

Your business will fail if you lack social intelligence.
Why you need both short and long-term goals in business.
Why Introverts could make better entrepreneurs.
Why you must have a business plan.
Business Mentors: why every business person needs one.
The secret in sending past clients thoughtful gifts.
Social Media: Why you should take full advantage of it for your business.
Placing higher values on experience than qualifications.
Parenting: why new fathers should also get paid time off to help with the baby.
Why gut instinct is still essential in hiring.

Business Debate Topics

It is usually challenging to choose business debate topics because you must select a business debate topic which you find interesting. We have prepared some hot business debate topics to help you in your essay.

Multinationals: Doing more harm than good?
Corporate jobs: A new form of slavery.
Stock market: is it related to gambling?
An MBA will not make you a good business leader.
An MBA is worth the cost.
Business and Politics: Should they be mixed?
Should the world run on a cashless economy?
Cryptocurrencies: Are they reliable in business?
Advertisements: Profitable to business?
Women: Better business managers than men?

So here we are! One hundred business topics which cover different areas in business. Are you ready to take your writing to a whole new level? These topics will set you on the right path faster. Don’t forget to proofread and edit your paper thoroughly before turning it in. Good luck!

Make PhD experience your own

Business Research Methods

Literature Review
Studying for your Project
Project Outline
Project Management
Report Writing
How to Reference
Reading Lists Online

What is a literature review

“A literature review is a description of the literature relevant to a particular field or topic. It gives an overview of what has been said, who the key writers are, what are the prevailing theories and hypotheses, what questions are being asked, and what methods and methodologies are appropriate and useful" (Emerald Insight).

A literature review is not just a summary of everything you have read on the topic. It is a critical analysis of the existing research relevant to your topic, and you should show how the literature relates to your topic and identify any gaps in the area of research. Our Learning Hub has lots of useful guidance for carrying out a Literature Review .

How is it different?

It's on a much larger scale from your research for previous modules.

You may need to devise new ways of searching and managing your results.

Think about:

Using RefWorks to manage your references
Setting up alerts to retrieve new results for your searches

How to carry out a review

Devise a search strategy
Search systematically
Read critically – i.e. deconstruct the material
Put it all back together – reconstruct

1. Devise a search strategy

Think about the sort of research that would help your project.

1. What subject areas does you topic fall into?

2. What possible sources could you use? Think broadly, for example:

Company reports
Industry profiles
Market research
Financial reports
Newspaper articles
Journal articles

3. What don't you want? What are the limits? For example, geographical restrictions or time periods.

2. Search systematically

Plan your search first, thinking about your keywords
Use the pages on this LibGuide to identify quality resources
Use the tutorials and advice on those pages to improve your searches
Use the Inter Library Loans service to borrow books or to obtain copies of papers which aren't in the library
Speak to the Business Librarians for help with your searches, or to recommend new items for library stock
Look at the programme of Succeed @ Tees workshops , and attend any which are relevant.

3. Read critically - i.e. deconstruct your results

Read critically, argument: .

What is the main argument?
Is the main argument clear and logical?
What is the evidence?
Is the evidence valid?
Does the evidence support the conclusions?

4. Put it all back together – reconstruct

Group your topic areas – develop themes
Briefly summarise key findings

- See Phrasebank for suggestions of how to phrase your sentences.

Use the academic papers as examples of the style of academic writing as well as for their content
Check your referencing

Succeed@Tees Workshops: Writing a Literature Review

The following workshop will help you to develop your skills in writing a literature review :

Writing a literature review

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Next: Project Management >>
Last Updated: Feb 7, 2024 11:37 AM
URL: https://libguides.tees.ac.uk/business_research

How To Write An A-Grade Literature Review

3 straightforward steps (with examples) + free template.

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Expert Reviewed By: Dr. Eunice Rautenbach | October 2019

Quality research is about building onto the existing work of others , “standing on the shoulders of giants”, as Newton put it. The literature review chapter of your dissertation, thesis or research project is where you synthesise this prior work and lay the theoretical foundation for your own research.

Long story short, this chapter is a pretty big deal, which is why you want to make sure you get it right . In this post, I’ll show you exactly how to write a literature review in three straightforward steps, so you can conquer this vital chapter (the smart way).

Overview: The Literature Review Process

Understanding the “ why “
Finding the relevant literature
Cataloguing and synthesising the information
Outlining & writing up your literature review
Example of a literature review

But first, the “why”…

Before we unpack how to write the literature review chapter, we’ve got to look at the why . To put it bluntly, if you don’t understand the function and purpose of the literature review process, there’s no way you can pull it off well. So, what exactly is the purpose of the literature review?

Well, there are (at least) four core functions:

For you to gain an understanding (and demonstrate this understanding) of where the research is at currently, what the key arguments and disagreements are.
For you to identify the gap(s) in the literature and then use this as justification for your own research topic.
To help you build a conceptual framework for empirical testing (if applicable to your research topic).
To inform your methodological choices and help you source tried and tested questionnaires (for interviews ) and measurement instruments (for surveys ).

Most students understand the first point but don’t give any thought to the rest. To get the most from the literature review process, you must keep all four points front of mind as you review the literature (more on this shortly), or you’ll land up with a wonky foundation.

Okay – with the why out the way, let’s move on to the how . As mentioned above, writing your literature review is a process, which I’ll break down into three steps:

Finding the most suitable literature
Understanding , distilling and organising the literature
Planning and writing up your literature review chapter

Importantly, you must complete steps one and two before you start writing up your chapter. I know it’s very tempting, but don’t try to kill two birds with one stone and write as you read. You’ll invariably end up wasting huge amounts of time re-writing and re-shaping, or you’ll just land up with a disjointed, hard-to-digest mess . Instead, you need to read first and distil the information, then plan and execute the writing.

Step 1: Find the relevant literature

Naturally, the first step in the literature review journey is to hunt down the existing research that’s relevant to your topic. While you probably already have a decent base of this from your research proposal , you need to expand on this substantially in the dissertation or thesis itself.

Essentially, you need to be looking for any existing literature that potentially helps you answer your research question (or develop it, if that’s not yet pinned down). There are numerous ways to find relevant literature, but I’ll cover my top four tactics here. I’d suggest combining all four methods to ensure that nothing slips past you:

Method 1 – Google Scholar Scrubbing

Google’s academic search engine, Google Scholar , is a great starting point as it provides a good high-level view of the relevant journal articles for whatever keyword you throw at it. Most valuably, it tells you how many times each article has been cited, which gives you an idea of how credible (or at least, popular) it is. Some articles will be free to access, while others will require an account, which brings us to the next method.

Method 2 – University Database Scrounging

Generally, universities provide students with access to an online library, which provides access to many (but not all) of the major journals.

So, if you find an article using Google Scholar that requires paid access (which is quite likely), search for that article in your university’s database – if it’s listed there, you’ll have access. Note that, generally, the search engine capabilities of these databases are poor, so make sure you search for the exact article name, or you might not find it.

Method 3 – Journal Article Snowballing

At the end of every academic journal article, you’ll find a list of references. As with any academic writing, these references are the building blocks of the article, so if the article is relevant to your topic, there’s a good chance a portion of the referenced works will be too. Do a quick scan of the titles and see what seems relevant, then search for the relevant ones in your university’s database.

Method 4 – Dissertation Scavenging

Similar to Method 3 above, you can leverage other students’ dissertations. All you have to do is skim through literature review chapters of existing dissertations related to your topic and you’ll find a gold mine of potential literature. Usually, your university will provide you with access to previous students’ dissertations, but you can also find a much larger selection in the following databases:

Open Access Theses & Dissertations
Stanford SearchWorks

Keep in mind that dissertations and theses are not as academically sound as published, peer-reviewed journal articles (because they’re written by students, not professionals), so be sure to check the credibility of any sources you find using this method. You can do this by assessing the citation count of any given article in Google Scholar. If you need help with assessing the credibility of any article, or with finding relevant research in general, you can chat with one of our Research Specialists .

Alright – with a good base of literature firmly under your belt, it’s time to move onto the next step.

Need a helping hand?

Step 2: Log, catalogue and synthesise

Once you’ve built a little treasure trove of articles, it’s time to get reading and start digesting the information – what does it all mean?

While I present steps one and two (hunting and digesting) as sequential, in reality, it’s more of a back-and-forth tango – you’ll read a little , then have an idea, spot a new citation, or a new potential variable, and then go back to searching for articles. This is perfectly natural – through the reading process, your thoughts will develop , new avenues might crop up, and directional adjustments might arise. This is, after all, one of the main purposes of the literature review process (i.e. to familiarise yourself with the current state of research in your field).

As you’re working through your treasure chest, it’s essential that you simultaneously start organising the information. There are three aspects to this:

Logging reference information
Building an organised catalogue
Distilling and synthesising the information

I’ll discuss each of these below:

2.1 – Log the reference information

As you read each article, you should add it to your reference management software. I usually recommend Mendeley for this purpose (see the Mendeley 101 video below), but you can use whichever software you’re comfortable with. Most importantly, make sure you load EVERY article you read into your reference manager, even if it doesn’t seem very relevant at the time.

2.2 – Build an organised catalogue

In the beginning, you might feel confident that you can remember who said what, where, and what their main arguments were. Trust me, you won’t. If you do a thorough review of the relevant literature (as you must!), you’re going to read many, many articles, and it’s simply impossible to remember who said what, when, and in what context . Also, without the bird’s eye view that a catalogue provides, you’ll miss connections between various articles, and have no view of how the research developed over time. Simply put, it’s essential to build your own catalogue of the literature.

I would suggest using Excel to build your catalogue, as it allows you to run filters, colour code and sort – all very useful when your list grows large (which it will). How you lay your spreadsheet out is up to you, but I’d suggest you have the following columns (at minimum):

Author, date, title – Start with three columns containing this core information. This will make it easy for you to search for titles with certain words, order research by date, or group by author.
Categories or keywords – You can either create multiple columns, one for each category/theme and then tick the relevant categories, or you can have one column with keywords.
Key arguments/points – Use this column to succinctly convey the essence of the article, the key arguments and implications thereof for your research.
Context – Note the socioeconomic context in which the research was undertaken. For example, US-based, respondents aged 25-35, lower- income, etc. This will be useful for making an argument about gaps in the research.
Methodology – Note which methodology was used and why. Also, note any issues you feel arise due to the methodology. Again, you can use this to make an argument about gaps in the research.
Quotations – Note down any quoteworthy lines you feel might be useful later.
Notes – Make notes about anything not already covered. For example, linkages to or disagreements with other theories, questions raised but unanswered, shortcomings or limitations, and so forth.

If you’d like, you can try out our free catalog template here (see screenshot below).

2.3 – Digest and synthesise

Most importantly, as you work through the literature and build your catalogue, you need to synthesise all the information in your own mind – how does it all fit together? Look for links between the various articles and try to develop a bigger picture view of the state of the research. Some important questions to ask yourself are:

What answers does the existing research provide to my own research questions ?
Which points do the researchers agree (and disagree) on?
How has the research developed over time?
Where do the gaps in the current research lie?

To help you develop a big-picture view and synthesise all the information, you might find mind mapping software such as Freemind useful. Alternatively, if you’re a fan of physical note-taking, investing in a large whiteboard might work for you.

Mind mapping is a useful way to plan your literature review.

Step 3: Outline and write it up!

Once you’re satisfied that you have digested and distilled all the relevant literature in your mind, it’s time to put pen to paper (or rather, fingers to keyboard). There are two steps here – outlining and writing:

3.1 – Draw up your outline

Having spent so much time reading, it might be tempting to just start writing up without a clear structure in mind. However, it’s critically important to decide on your structure and develop a detailed outline before you write anything. Your literature review chapter needs to present a clear, logical and an easy to follow narrative – and that requires some planning. Don’t try to wing it!

Naturally, you won’t always follow the plan to the letter, but without a detailed outline, you’re more than likely going to end up with a disjointed pile of waffle , and then you’re going to spend a far greater amount of time re-writing, hacking and patching. The adage, “measure twice, cut once” is very suitable here.

In terms of structure, the first decision you’ll have to make is whether you’ll lay out your review thematically (into themes) or chronologically (by date/period). The right choice depends on your topic, research objectives and research questions, which we discuss in this article .

Once that’s decided, you need to draw up an outline of your entire chapter in bullet point format. Try to get as detailed as possible, so that you know exactly what you’ll cover where, how each section will connect to the next, and how your entire argument will develop throughout the chapter. Also, at this stage, it’s a good idea to allocate rough word count limits for each section, so that you can identify word count problems before you’ve spent weeks or months writing!

PS – check out our free literature review chapter template…

3.2 – Get writing

With a detailed outline at your side, it’s time to start writing up (finally!). At this stage, it’s common to feel a bit of writer’s block and find yourself procrastinating under the pressure of finally having to put something on paper. To help with this, remember that the objective of the first draft is not perfection – it’s simply to get your thoughts out of your head and onto paper, after which you can refine them. The structure might change a little, the word count allocations might shift and shuffle, and you might add or remove a section – that’s all okay. Don’t worry about all this on your first draft – just get your thoughts down on paper.

Once you’ve got a full first draft (however rough it may be), step away from it for a day or two (longer if you can) and then come back at it with fresh eyes. Pay particular attention to the flow and narrative – does it fall fit together and flow from one section to another smoothly? Now’s the time to try to improve the linkage from each section to the next, tighten up the writing to be more concise, trim down word count and sand it down into a more digestible read.

Once you’ve done that, give your writing to a friend or colleague who is not a subject matter expert and ask them if they understand the overall discussion. The best way to assess this is to ask them to explain the chapter back to you. This technique will give you a strong indication of which points were clearly communicated and which weren’t. If you’re working with Grad Coach, this is a good time to have your Research Specialist review your chapter.

Finally, tighten it up and send it off to your supervisor for comment. Some might argue that you should be sending your work to your supervisor sooner than this (indeed your university might formally require this), but in my experience, supervisors are extremely short on time (and often patience), so, the more refined your chapter is, the less time they’ll waste on addressing basic issues (which you know about already) and the more time they’ll spend on valuable feedback that will increase your mark-earning potential.

Literature Review Example

In the video below, we unpack an actual literature review so that you can see how all the core components come together in reality.

Let’s Recap

In this post, we’ve covered how to research and write up a high-quality literature review chapter. Let’s do a quick recap of the key takeaways:

It is essential to understand the WHY of the literature review before you read or write anything. Make sure you understand the 4 core functions of the process.
The first step is to hunt down the relevant literature . You can do this using Google Scholar, your university database, the snowballing technique and by reviewing other dissertations and theses.
Next, you need to log all the articles in your reference manager , build your own catalogue of literature and synthesise all the research.
Following that, you need to develop a detailed outline of your entire chapter – the more detail the better. Don’t start writing without a clear outline (on paper, not in your head!)
Write up your first draft in rough form – don’t aim for perfection. Remember, done beats perfect.
Refine your second draft and get a layman’s perspective on it . Then tighten it up and submit it to your supervisor.

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling Udemy Course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

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38 Comments

Thank you very much. This page is an eye opener and easy to comprehend.

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I wish I come across GradCoach earlier enough.

But all the same I’ll make use of this opportunity to the fullest.

Thank you for this good job.

Keep it up!

You’re welcome, Yinka. Thank you for the kind words. All the best writing your literature review.

Thank you for a very useful literature review session. Although I am doing most of the steps…it being my first masters an Mphil is a self study and one not sure you are on the right track. I have an amazing supervisor but one also knows they are super busy. So not wanting to bother on the minutae. Thank you.

You’re most welcome, Renee. Good luck with your literature review 🙂

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You’re welcome, Maithe. Good luck writing your literature review 🙂

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Thank you so much Derek for such useful information on writing up a good literature review. I am at a stage where I need to start writing my one. My proposal was accepted late last year but I honestly did not know where to start

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Very comprehensive and eye opener for me as beginner in postgraduate study. Well explained and easy to understand. Appreciate and good reference in guiding me in my research journey. Thank you

Thank you. I requested to download the free literature review template, however, your website wouldn’t allow me to complete the request or complete a download. May I request that you email me the free template? Thank you.

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What is a Literature Review? How to Write It (with Examples)

A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing how your work contributes to the ongoing conversation in the field. Learning how to write a literature review is a critical tool for successful research. Your ability to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic demonstrates your grasp on the topic of study, and assists in the learning process.

What is the purpose of literature review?
a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction:
b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes:
c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs:
d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts:
How to write a good literature review
Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question:
Decide on the Scope of Your Review:
Select Databases for Searches:
Conduct Searches and Keep Track:
Review the Literature:
Organize and Write Your Literature Review:
Frequently asked questions

What is a literature review?

A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the existing literature, establishes the context for their own research, and contributes to scholarly conversations on the topic. One of the purposes of a literature review is also to help researchers avoid duplicating previous work and ensure that their research is informed by and builds upon the existing body of knowledge.

What is the purpose of literature review?

A literature review serves several important purposes within academic and research contexts. Here are some key objectives and functions of a literature review: 2

Contextualizing the Research Problem: The literature review provides a background and context for the research problem under investigation. It helps to situate the study within the existing body of knowledge.
Identifying Gaps in Knowledge: By identifying gaps, contradictions, or areas requiring further research, the researcher can shape the research question and justify the significance of the study. This is crucial for ensuring that the new research contributes something novel to the field.
Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: Literature reviews help researchers gain an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in previous studies. This aids in the development of a theoretical framework for the current research.
Providing Methodological Insights: Another purpose of literature reviews is that it allows researchers to learn about the methodologies employed in previous studies. This can help in choosing appropriate research methods for the current study and avoiding pitfalls that others may have encountered.
Establishing Credibility: A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with existing scholarship, establishing their credibility and expertise in the field. It also helps in building a solid foundation for the new research.
Informing Hypotheses or Research Questions: The literature review guides the formulation of hypotheses or research questions by highlighting relevant findings and areas of uncertainty in existing literature.

Literature review example

Let’s delve deeper with a literature review example: Let’s say your literature review is about the impact of climate change on biodiversity. You might format your literature review into sections such as the effects of climate change on habitat loss and species extinction, phenological changes, and marine biodiversity. Each section would then summarize and analyze relevant studies in those areas, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps in the research. The review would conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on specific aspects of the relationship between climate change and biodiversity. The following literature review template provides a glimpse into the recommended literature review structure and content, demonstrating how research findings are organized around specific themes within a broader topic.

Literature Review on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity:

Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, including significant impacts on biodiversity. This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies:

a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction:

Climate change-induced alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to habitat loss, affecting numerous species (Thomas et al., 2004). The review discusses how these changes increase the risk of extinction, particularly for species with specific habitat requirements.

b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes:

Observations of range shifts and changes in the timing of biological events (phenology) are documented in response to changing climatic conditions (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). These shifts affect ecosystems and may lead to mismatches between species and their resources.

c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs:

The review explores the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity, emphasizing ocean acidification’s threat to coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007). Changes in pH levels negatively affect coral calcification, disrupting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems.

d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts:

Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the literature review discusses various adaptive strategies adopted by species and conservation efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Hannah et al., 2007). It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for effective conservation planning.

How to write a good literature review

Writing a literature review involves summarizing and synthesizing existing research on a particular topic. A good literature review format should include the following elements.

Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your literature review, providing context and introducing the main focus of your review.

Opening Statement: Begin with a general statement about the broader topic and its significance in the field.
Scope and Purpose: Clearly define the scope of your literature review. Explain the specific research question or objective you aim to address.
Organizational Framework: Briefly outline the structure of your literature review, indicating how you will categorize and discuss the existing research.
Significance of the Study: Highlight why your literature review is important and how it contributes to the understanding of the chosen topic.
Thesis Statement: Conclude the introduction with a concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or perspective you will develop in the body of the literature review.

Body: The body of the literature review is where you provide a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, grouping studies based on themes, methodologies, or other relevant criteria.

Organize by Theme or Concept: Group studies that share common themes, concepts, or methodologies. Discuss each theme or concept in detail, summarizing key findings and identifying gaps or areas of disagreement.
Critical Analysis: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each study. Discuss the methodologies used, the quality of evidence, and the overall contribution of each work to the understanding of the topic.
Synthesis of Findings: Synthesize the information from different studies to highlight trends, patterns, or areas of consensus in the literature.
Identification of Gaps: Discuss any gaps or limitations in the existing research and explain how your review contributes to filling these gaps.
Transition between Sections: Provide smooth transitions between different themes or concepts to maintain the flow of your literature review.

Conclusion: The conclusion of your literature review should summarize the main findings, highlight the contributions of the review, and suggest avenues for future research.

Summary of Key Findings: Recap the main findings from the literature and restate how they contribute to your research question or objective.
Contributions to the Field: Discuss the overall contribution of your literature review to the existing knowledge in the field.
Implications and Applications: Explore the practical implications of the findings and suggest how they might impact future research or practice.
Recommendations for Future Research: Identify areas that require further investigation and propose potential directions for future research in the field.
Final Thoughts: Conclude with a final reflection on the importance of your literature review and its relevance to the broader academic community.

Conducting a literature review

Conducting a literature review is an essential step in research that involves reviewing and analyzing existing literature on a specific topic. It’s important to know how to do a literature review effectively, so here are the steps to follow: 1

Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question:

Select a topic that is relevant to your field of study.
Clearly define your research question or objective. Determine what specific aspect of the topic do you want to explore?

Decide on the Scope of Your Review:

Determine the timeframe for your literature review. Are you focusing on recent developments, or do you want a historical overview?
Consider the geographical scope. Is your review global, or are you focusing on a specific region?
Define the inclusion and exclusion criteria. What types of sources will you include? Are there specific types of studies or publications you will exclude?

Select Databases for Searches:

Identify relevant databases for your field. Examples include PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar.
Consider searching in library catalogs, institutional repositories, and specialized databases related to your topic.

Conduct Searches and Keep Track:

Develop a systematic search strategy using keywords, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and other search techniques.
Record and document your search strategy for transparency and replicability.
Keep track of the articles, including publication details, abstracts, and links. Use citation management tools like EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley to organize your references.

Review the Literature:

Evaluate the relevance and quality of each source. Consider the methodology, sample size, and results of studies.
Organize the literature by themes or key concepts. Identify patterns, trends, and gaps in the existing research.
Summarize key findings and arguments from each source. Compare and contrast different perspectives.
Identify areas where there is a consensus in the literature and where there are conflicting opinions.
Provide critical analysis and synthesis of the literature. What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing research?

Organize and Write Your Literature Review:

Literature review outline should be based on themes, chronological order, or methodological approaches.
Write a clear and coherent narrative that synthesizes the information gathered.
Use proper citations for each source and ensure consistency in your citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).
Conclude your literature review by summarizing key findings, identifying gaps, and suggesting areas for future research.

The literature review sample and detailed advice on writing and conducting a review will help you produce a well-structured report. But remember that a literature review is an ongoing process, and it may be necessary to revisit and update it as your research progresses.

Frequently asked questions

A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing literature (published and unpublished works) on a specific topic or research question and provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-conducted literature review is crucial for researchers to build upon existing knowledge, avoid duplication of efforts, and contribute to the advancement of their field. It also helps researchers situate their work within a broader context and facilitates the development of a sound theoretical and conceptual framework for their studies.

Literature review is a crucial component of research writing, providing a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. The aim is to keep professionals up to date by providing an understanding of ongoing developments within a specific field, including research methods, and experimental techniques used in that field, and present that knowledge in the form of a written report. Also, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the scholar in his or her field.

Before writing a literature review, it’s essential to undertake several preparatory steps to ensure that your review is well-researched, organized, and focused. This includes choosing a topic of general interest to you and doing exploratory research on that topic, writing an annotated bibliography, and noting major points, especially those that relate to the position you have taken on the topic.

Literature reviews and academic research papers are essential components of scholarly work but serve different purposes within the academic realm. 3 A literature review aims to provide a foundation for understanding the current state of research on a particular topic, identify gaps or controversies, and lay the groundwork for future research. Therefore, it draws heavily from existing academic sources, including books, journal articles, and other scholarly publications. In contrast, an academic research paper aims to present new knowledge, contribute to the academic discourse, and advance the understanding of a specific research question. Therefore, it involves a mix of existing literature (in the introduction and literature review sections) and original data or findings obtained through research methods.

Literature reviews are essential components of academic and research papers, and various strategies can be employed to conduct them effectively. If you want to know how to write a literature review for a research paper, here are four common approaches that are often used by researchers. Chronological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the chronological order of publication. It helps to trace the development of a topic over time, showing how ideas, theories, and research have evolved. Thematic Review: Thematic reviews focus on identifying and analyzing themes or topics that cut across different studies. Instead of organizing the literature chronologically, it is grouped by key themes or concepts, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of various aspects of the topic. Methodological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the research methods employed in different studies. It helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies and allows the reader to evaluate the reliability and validity of the research findings. Theoretical Review: A theoretical review examines the literature based on the theoretical frameworks used in different studies. This approach helps to identify the key theories that have been applied to the topic and assess their contributions to the understanding of the subject. It’s important to note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and a literature review may combine elements of more than one approach. The choice of strategy depends on the research question, the nature of the literature available, and the goals of the review. Additionally, other strategies, such as integrative reviews or systematic reviews, may be employed depending on the specific requirements of the research.

The literature review format can vary depending on the specific publication guidelines. However, there are some common elements and structures that are often followed. Here is a general guideline for the format of a literature review: Introduction: Provide an overview of the topic. Define the scope and purpose of the literature review. State the research question or objective. Body: Organize the literature by themes, concepts, or chronology. Critically analyze and evaluate each source. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the studies. Highlight any methodological limitations or biases. Identify patterns, connections, or contradictions in the existing research. Conclusion: Summarize the key points discussed in the literature review. Highlight the research gap. Address the research question or objective stated in the introduction. Highlight the contributions of the review and suggest directions for future research.

Both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews involve the examination of scholarly sources. While annotated bibliographies focus on individual sources with brief annotations, literature reviews provide a more in-depth, integrated, and comprehensive analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. The key differences are as follows:

References

Denney, A. S., & Tewksbury, R. (2013). How to write a literature review.  Journal of criminal justice education ,  24 (2), 218-234.
Pan, M. L. (2016).  Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches . Taylor & Francis.
Cantero, C. (2019). How to write a literature review.  San José State University Writing Center .

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Try it for free or upgrade to  Paperpal Prime , which unlocks unlimited access to premium features like academic translation, paraphrasing, contextual synonyms, consistency checks and more. It’s like always having a professional academic editor by your side! Go beyond limitations and experience the future of academic writing.  Get Paperpal Prime now at just US$19 a month!

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Literature Reviews

Defining Literature Reviews
Choosing a Topic
Developing Search Strategies
Finding Sources
Evaluating Sources
Staying Organized
Tracking Citations
Writing the Literature Review

Getting Acquainted with the Literature and Identifying Gaps

In addition to the suggestions on this page, you can narrow down your research question by getting a better understanding of the literature in your field and what gaps exist in the research.

Here are some ways to do that:

Read recent issues of the top scholarly journals in your field. Not sure what those are? Ask your professor/advisor, or you can use tools like Journal Citation Reports (below) to identify top journals by impact factor.
Read Calls for Papers in your field. Most journals, conferences, and book editors promote requests for proposals for upcoming publications or presentations, which will give you an idea of the scope for what they are looking for and may also present current themes of interest to researchers in your discipline. If you are a member of a professional organization for your area, these organizations usually share those calls to their members as well.
Identify and read seminal works in your field. Your professors may be able to point you to important works you should know about, and reading these may give you an idea for how you might build on that previous research.
Talk to your professor/advisor/editor. They might have suggestions for what angle you might take for your literature review.
Journal Citation Reports This link opens in a new window

What Is a Researchable Topic?

A good literature review begins with a good research question. What makes a good research question? Something answerable by more than a yes or no answer. For example, climate change is an okay topic to begin with, but what about it? Ask yourself the who, what, where, when, why, and how questions about your topic. Climate change might become how is coastal erosion caused by climate change affecting communities on the coast of Southeast Louisiana ? The more narrow your topic is, the easier it will be to limit your search.

Once you've selected a topic, you can refine it by either expanding or limiting your focus. You could limit your research to a particular time period (perhaps the past 10 years of research on the topic), the group studied (looking at only a particular population). You could expand your research by adding additional concepts (in our example, maybe looking at the effects of both coastal erosion and increased severe weather events) or removing limiters (like getting rid of a time period limit).

If you're finding that refining process challenging, do some background research. The research process is iterative, so every time you read another piece of information, your background knowledge grows and changes, and your research question may shift based on what you've read. We'll go over some ideas for developing background knowledge below.

Finding Example Review Articles

You can find example review articles to serve as a model and introduce you to important pieces of research. You can find review articles in a few ways:

Search a database, such as Academic Search Complete, for "literature review" OR review AND your topic. E.g. "literature review" OR review AND "Civil War"
Search the E-Journals tab on the Libraries' homepage for Annual Review of ... to find annual review journals in your discipline
Use the Annual Reviews database (below) to browse issues of annual review journals. Note: this is helpful for some disciplines in the sciences and social sciences, but does not include annual reviews for disciplines like the arts, humanities, or business.
Annual Reviews This link opens in a new window

Finding Dissertations/Theses

For those who are working on a literature review for a dissertation or thesis, it can be helpful to look at the literature reviews of others in your program at LSU or other institutions. Where you can find these depends on factors like the age and institution of the dissertation/thesis. You can find step-by-step instructions for how to search on the guide below.

Finding Dissertations and Theses by Mitch Fontenot Last Updated Sep 11, 2023 251 views this year
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BA 302 Business Communication - Research: Literature Reviews

Research Process
Literature Reviews
Evaluating Resources
Search Techniques

Steps to Creating a Literature Review

Step 1: Planning your search

Step 2: Selecting a database

Step 3: Conducting your search

Step 4: Evaluating your results

Step 5: Managing your references

What is a Literature Review?

A literature review is a systematic survey of the scholarly literature published on a given topic. Rather than providing a new research insight, a literature review lays the groundwork for an in-depth research project analyzing previous research. Type of documents surveyed will vary depending on the field, but can include:

journal articles,
dissertations.

A thorough literature review will also require surveying what librarians call "gray literature," which includes difficult-to-locate documents such as:

technical reports
government publications
working papers

Purpose of the Lit Review

What's the point, purposes of the literature review.

Delimit the research problem
Avoid fruitless approaches
Identify avenues of future research
Seek new lines of inquiry
Gain methodological insight

Reasons for Conducting a Literature Review

Distinguishing what has been done from what needs to be done
Discovering important variables relevant to the topic
Synthesizing and gaining new perspective
Identifying relationships between ideas and practices
Establishing the context of the topic
Rationalizing the significance of the problem
Enhancing and acquiring subject vocabulary
Understanding the structure of the subject
Relating ideas and theory to applications
Identifying main methodologies and research techniques that have been used
Placing research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-art development

Questions to consider

What is the overarching question or problem your literature review seeks to address?
How much familiarity do you already have with the field? Are you already familiar with common methodologies or professional vocabularies?
What types of strategies or questions have others in your field pursued?
How will you synthesize or summarize the information you gather?
What do you or others perceive to be lacking in your field?
Is your topic broad? How could it be narrowed?
Can you articulate why your topic is important in your field?

Adapted from Hart, C. (1998). Doing a literature review : Releasing the social science research imagination. London: Sage. As cited in Randolph, Justus. “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review.” Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation , 14(13), p. 2.

Acknowledgements

Merinda Hensley gave permision for content to be borrowed by permission from Literature Review: Demystified LibGuide from the University of Illnois at Urbana-Champaign.

Getting Started

Once you've decided what you want to write about you will need to conduct a systematic review of journal literature to establish what has been written in your field.

Databases enable you to combine search terms and locate high quality journal articles, conference papers and proceedings from a wide range of sources. Have a look at the Accessing Databases tab to choose the right one for your subject area. There are links to brief online tutorials or pdf guides to help you with using each of the databases there too.

Brilliant for conducting a thorough, systematic & exhaustive search of the literature
You can cross concepts together and so be more precise about what you are searching for
Some databases (BREI, PsycINFO) include a thesaurus so you can check terminology
The results are valid, reliable and authoritative (academic articles)

What about Google?

G o o g l e and G o o g l e Scholar are not the most efficient or effective tools for searching the literature. Here are a few reasons why:

• You can only narrow searches by date, not subject • You cannot give words meaning e.g. primary/first • Links are unstable and not verified and so you may not be able to access the results • Pdfs look like they are freely available but often they are not

In addition to this, you also need to carefully evaluate all internet resources:

1. Who authored the information? 2. What expertise does the writer have to comment? 3. What evidence is used? Are there citations in the piece? 4. What genre is the document: journalism, academic paper,blog, polemic? 5. Is the site/document/report funded by an institution? 6. What argument is being made? 7. When was the text produced? 8. Why did this information emerge at this point in history? 9. Who is the audience for this information? 10. What is not being discussed and what are the political consequences of that absence? (Taken from Brabazon, T. (2006) 'The Google Effect: Googling, blogging, wikis and the flattening of expertise', Libri, v. 56, pp 157-167)

• You may find this guide for evaluating internet resources (compiled by UWE Library Services) useful too

And finally.... • They retrieve a huge number of results – which wastes valuable time and leads to information overload and frustration!

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UConn Library
Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide
How to Pick a Topic

Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide — How to Pick a Topic

Getting Started
Introduction
Strategies to Find Sources
Evaluating Sources & Lit. Reviews
Tips for Writing Literature Reviews
Writing Literature Review: Useful Sites
Citation Resources
Other Academic Writings

Picking a Topic and Keywords to Research your Topic

Whether you are writing a literature review as a standalone work or as part of a paper, choosing a topic is an important part of the process. If you haven't select a topic yet for your literature view or you feel that your topic is too broad, this page is for you!

The key to successfully choosing a topic is to find one that is not too broad (impossible to adequately cover) but also not too narrow (not enough has been written about it). Use the tools below to help you brainstorm a topic and keywords that then you can use to search our many databases. Feel free to explore these different options or contact a Subject Specialist if you need more help!

Concept map. Level one: Healthcare Policy. Level two: Insurance, Marijuana, COVID-19. Level three: COBRA, Afforable Care Act, Single-payer system; federal law, cannabis licensing, CBD; vaccine hesitancy, racial inequities, Families First Coronavirus Response Act

Concept Mapping

[REMOVE] Mind Mapping (also known as Concept Mapping) A helpful handout to show step by step how to create a concept map to map out a topic.

Picking a topic and search terms

Below are some useful links and handouts that help you develop your topic. Check the handouts in this page. They are useful to help you develop keywords/search terms or to learn the best way to search databases to find articles and books for your research.

UVA Thinking Tool: Choosing a Topic and Search Terms Provides a template for focusing a research assignment through the brainstorming of ideas, keywords, and other terminology related to a topic.
UW How to Improve Database Search Results Suggested strategies for retrieving relevant search results
UCLA: Narrowing a Topic Useful tips on how to narrow a topic when you are getting too many results in your search. From the librarians at UCLA.
UCLA: Broadering a Topic Useful tips on how to broaden your topic when you are getting few results in your search. From the librarians at UCLA.
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University of La Verne
Subject Guides

Literature Review Basics

Tutorials & Samples
Literature Review Introduction
Writing Literature Reviews
Primary & Secondary Sources

Literature Review Tutorials

Literature Reviews: An Overview for Students What is a literature review? What purpose does it serve in research? What should you expect when writing one? Find out here in this guide from NCSU libraries.
Write a Lit Review from Virginia Commonwealth University Follow this guide to learn how to write a literature review, beginning with a synthesis matrix.
Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide This guide will help you understand what is a Literature Review, why it is important and how it is done. Also includes information on Annotated Bibliographies.
Writing a Literature Review from the University of Toledo Covers what a lit review is, lit review types, writing a lit review and further readings.
The Literature Review Process A guide from the University of North Texas on selecting a topic, searching the literature, plan before reviewing, reviewing the literature and writing the review.
The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Permission granted to use this guide.

Sample Literature Reviews

Business Literature Review Example One Sharing economy: A comprehensive literature review
Business Literature Review Example Two Internet marketing: a content analysis of the research
Education Literature Review Sample One Teachers’ perception of STEM integration and education: a systematic literature review
Education Literature Review Sample Two Issues and Challenges for Teaching Successful Online Courses in Higher Education: A Literature Review
Gerontology Literature Review Sample One Attitudes towards caring for older people: literature review and methodology
Gerontology Literature Review Sample Two Literature review: understanding nursing competence in dementia care
Psychology Literature Review Sample One Psychological Correlates of University Students’ Academic Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Psychology Literature Review Sample Two Misuse of Prescription Stimulants Among College Students: A Review of the Literature and Implications for Morphological and Cognitive Effects on Brain Functioning
Public Administration Literature Review Sample One Considering the Environment in Transportation Planning: Review of Emerging Paradigms and Practice in the United States
Public Administration Literature Review Sample Two Assessing the impact of research on policy: a literature review
Sociology Literature Review Sample One Employment Among Current and Former Welfare Recipients: A Literature Review
Sociology Literature Review Sample Two Deployment and family functioning: A literature review of US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq
Technology Literature Review Sample One Social media and innovation: A systematic literature review and future research directions
Technology Literature Review Sample Two Blockchain as a disruptive technology for business: A systematic review
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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Writing a Literature Review

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
Qualitative versus quantitative research
Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

UWF Libraries

Literature Review: Conducting & Writing

Sample Literature Reviews
Steps for Conducting a Lit Review
Finding "The Literature"
Organizing/Writing
APA Style This link opens in a new window
Chicago: Notes Bibliography This link opens in a new window
MLA Style This link opens in a new window

Sample Lit Reviews from Communication Arts

Have an exemplary literature review.

Literature Review Sample 1
Literature Review Sample 2
Literature Review Sample 3

Have you written a stellar literature review you care to share for teaching purposes?

Are you an instructor who has received an exemplary literature review and have permission from the student to post?

Please contact Britt McGowan at [email protected] for inclusion in this guide. All disciplines welcome and encouraged.

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v.9(1); 2023 Jan

Innovation and international business: A systematic literature review

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Data will be made available on request.

Introduction

Innovation and international business are essential to achieve competitive advantages in currently unforeseen business environments. Today's company seeks innovation in its country of origin and abroad in order to compete globally. Thus, incorporating this concept into international companies' strategies is a main issue nowadays.

The aim of this systematic study is to improve the current knowledge on the relationship between innovation and international business, as well as identifying innovation tendencies for corporations to acknowledge the opportunities and challenges of this area's development in the international business context.

Methodology

Despite the abundance of innovation and international business reviews, joint reviews of both of them cannot be found. This study is the first to combine the scholarly research on both topics with the systematic literature review of academic literature of 28 years, following the PRISMA guidelines and flowchart. A search was carried out in Web of Science database; 847 initial documents were obtained and, after reviewing multiple documents according to the inclusion/exclusion criteria, the results for this research work were reduced to 236 articles.

The results of this research provide an overview of the knowledge structure of innovation and international business. As the main contribution, the results highlight four themes of investigation within a comprehensive and multidimensional framework: Innovative activities of multinational corporations, Global value chains, Innovation in emerging economies, and Cross-border knowledge. With an international perspective, insights from how to face innovation development in the international business context are presented.

Conclusions

There is a strong relationship between innovation and international business. These four research trends highlight the strategic importance of innovation in the international business field. Finally, the most interesting paths for future research are identified, targeting opportunities for improvement in both areas. This systematic literature review is expected to make significant contributions to both theory and practice in the field of innovation and international business.

1. Introduction

Innovation, knowledge and technology are relevant concepts in the international business field [ 1 ] and both areas are essential to achieve competitive advantages in current business environments [ 2 ]. Cantwell [ 3 ] adds that innovation and internationalization processes have been increasingly interlinked as key drivers of development since the first industrial revolution, all the way to today's information age.

Innovation is the cornerstone of growth and sustains organizations to counter marketplace fluctuations and prepares them for long-term growth [ 4 ]. Business model innovation, although it is very difficult to achieve [ 5 ], can itself be a pathway to competitive advantage if the model is sufficiently differentiated and hard to replicate for incumbents and new entrants alike [ 6 ]. New models of innovation have encouraged many innovative firms to change the way they search for new ideas, adopting open search strategies that involve the use of a wide range of external actors and sources to help them achieve innovation [ 7 ].

The field of international business studies came to prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s with the growth of multinational corporations [ 8 ]. In this framework, two theoretical models are extremely relevant; on the one hand, gradual internationalization or Uppsala model, according to which internationalization is seen as an incremental process that begins in foreign markets, being in closer proximity to the domestic market in terms of physical distance [ 9 , 10 ] and, on the other hand, born global firms, that is to say, companies that internationalise at or near their founding, on an average period of three years of founding, generating at least twenty five percent of their total sales from foreign countries [ 11 ]. There is an extensive literature about this issue [ [12] , [13] , [14] ].

The systematic literature review on the topic of innovation has been a frequent research method over the last ten years. Different topics have been raised and discussed: organizational innovation [ 15 ], innovation capability in SMEs [ 16 ], or digital innovation in knowledge management systems [ 17 ] among others. In the same way, systematic literature review about international business is copious, holding various topics of investigation: knowledge flows in multinational corporations [ 18 ], business systems theory [ 19 ], social network [ 20 ], or culture [ 21 , 22 ].

Despite the abundance of innovation and international business reviews, joint reviews of both of them cannot be found, such review being needed since the emerging phenomena that are changing international business' frontiers require a change, as well, in the threshold of international business’ innovation [ 23 ]. From an economic point of view, Melitz [ 24 ] shows how high exposure to trade will induce only the most productive companies to enter the international markets; in addition, internationalization has a more positive effect on innovation in high productivity companies [ 25 ]. Likewise, the number of international relations increases the capacity to innovate [ 26 ] and exposure to foreign competition is associated with greater firm innovation [ 27 ]. Companies thus grow either through innovation or through internationalization (also through a mixed strategy), with a combination of internationalization and innovation being the most advisable option when domestic markets are limited [ 28 ].

International innovativeness is a significant dimension of international business competence [ 29 ], as a nuanced understanding of innovation and international business necessitates a multidisciplinary approach to reveal their multifaceted aspects [ 30 ]. Having this in mind, the aim of this study is to improve the current knowledge on the relationship between innovation and international business, that is to say, to identify trends for companies to know better the opportunities and challenges of innovation development in the international business context. Thus, the main innovative contribution of this systematic approach is the proposal of four themes of investigation within a comprehensive and multidimensional framework: Innovative activities of multinational corporations, Global value chains, Innovation in emerging economies, and Cross-border knowledge. This systematic review is motivated by the knowledge gap found in this issue since future research could fill that knowledge gap in the international business field through the development of new theoretical frameworks that draw on various disciplines [ 31 ]. On this wise, international business literature tends to develop a plurality of approaches that makes difficult to find single recurring or dominant forms [ 32 ].

Considering the ideas presented above and creating an intersection between both the literature of innovation and that of international business, this research provides several contributions to both areas. This is done with a methodologically systematic review of academic literature on both topics. A systematic review has been increasingly adopted in the management literature and is guided by a review question that defines the topics used for the database [ 33 ]. Following a previous theoretical study, two research questions were defined.

What themes about innovation and international business have been studied jointly to date?

Which themes about both areas require further research?

The rest of the paper is structured as follows: the section “Research method” presents the methodology and both the data search and selection used for the study; meanwhile, the section “Research results” presents the main results derived from that research, being categorized in those four themes of investigation posed earlier; the section “Discussion” also presents “Limitations” and “Recommendations for future research”, as further studies are needed to provide greater insight about this new approach; finally, the section “Conclusions” has also been included.

2. Research method

This paper presents the results of a systematic review of innovation in international business. Knowledge production within the field of business research is accelerating while at the same time remaining fragmented and interdisciplinary. This makes difficult to assess the global evidence in a specific area of business research, being the reason why literature review as a research method is more important than ever [ 34 ]. An advantage of the systematic review methodology is the generalizability of the results by allowing the accumulated knowledge in the field to be systematically synthesized and analysed [ 35 ]. A systematic review should have a list of specific steps to assure that important studies regarding the topic are acquired without any bias. Overall, following Tranfield et al. [ 36 ], (1) Identification for the need for a review, (2) Selecting a sample of potentially relevant works and the pertinent literature, (3) Data synthesis, (4) Reporting the results and recommendations. The cited steps are all followed in this study. Specifically, the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis, commonly called PRISMA [ 37 ], were followed in this study.

In this analysis, a systematic search was carried out in Web of Science of Clarivate Analytics, including documents published from January 01, 1993 to December 31, 2020. Birkle et al. [ 38 ] claim that Web of Science is the world's oldest, most used and reliable database of research publications (around 34000 journals today). The query used in this systematic literature review is as it follows: TS = (“Innovation” AND “International Business”). Consequently, TS = Topic; and the search terms “innovation” and “international business” were combined with the Boolean Operator “AND”. Therefore, literature search was based on two simultaneous topics, “innovation” and “international business” (as stated in the title of the publication, the abstract, the author keywords and/or the keywords plus). Each document has been published between 1993 and 2020, since the first contribution was published in 1993. A total of 847 related documents were found. Thus, it can be affirmed that the importance and size of the literature on innovation and international business is more relevant.

Different criteria for inclusion and exclusion are considered in this study. The process is described through the PRISMA flowchart ( Fig. 1 ). Excluding meetings, books, review articles, editorial materials, and others, the reviewing process generated 630 articles. Only articles published in Business Economics have been considered due to its prominent research area regarding the topics of this paper; bearing this in mind, the number of the articles was reduced to 291. Each article is written in English language following Tenzer et al. [ 39 ], stating that 75% of articles in the social sciences are written in this language; therefore, the number of articles was delimited to 264. At last, each article was read in its entirety and various articles were excluded based on full-text or abstract due to their irrelevant nature to the research; thereby, the final sample has been finally reduced to 236 articles. Other criteria, as open access or funding agencies, have not been considered in this research work.

PRISMA flowchart of the systematic literature review.

One by one, data of each article were extracted, transferred, and sorted into Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for further analysis. Therefore, a wide Excel database was created with specific information for each article: journal, title, authors' keywords, keywords plus, year of publication, and author information (number, name, affiliation, and country). Specifically, the author keywords and the keywords plus have been studied. In total, 3064 keywords (authors’ keywords and keywords plus) were counted, analysed and categorized; this analysis has allowed to obtain four themes of investigation. Subsequently, in Web of Science, these research trends have been confirmed with the latest studies published from January 01, 2021 to November 03, 2022.

3. Research results

3.1. general results.

Fig. 2 shows the number of articles on innovation and international business published each year over time. 236 articles were published during the study period 1993–2020, with no consistent trend of the number of articles published, that is to say, with some ups and downs. 80% of the total articles reviewed (189) were published during the last ten years (2011–2020). The largest number of articles was published during 2020 (43 articles), followed by 2018 (31 articles), 2015 and 2019 (both with 21 articles), and finally 2017 (15 articles). There was a lack of publications during the following years: 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2001. Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods are included in these articles (for instance, case study, literature review, bibliometric study, or regression analysis, among others).

Number of articles published each year.

The first article was published in the Strategic Management Journal by Hagedoorn [ 40 ]; this article presents interfirm strategic alliances in the international business area and their relationship with innovative efforts. The second article was published in the Journal of International Business Studies by Buckley and Casson [ 41 ], regarding international joint ventures in terms of the accelerating pace of technological innovation.

Number of authors per article is presented in Table 1 . The number of authors ranged from 1 to 9, with a predominance of two (35.59%) and three (30.93%) authors per article, that is to say, over 65% of the articles published. Besides, the mean of authors per article is considered to be 2.44.

Number of authors per article.

Following the previously mentioned line of thought, Table 2 shows the most relevant journals for research topic. The major journals included in this study are Journal of International Business Studies (48 articles; 20.34%), International Business Review (32 articles; 13.56%), International Marketing Review (14 articles; 5.93%), Management International Review (12 articles; 5.08%), Journal of International Management (8 articles; 3.39%), and Multinational Business Review (8 articles; 3.39%). These are believed to be the top six academic journals and represent more than a half (52%) of the total scientific production.

Main authors.

Principal journals.

Eight journals have published at least three articles (Thunderbird International Business Review, Journal of World Business, Entrepreneurial Business and Economics Review, Organization Studies, Industry and Innovation, Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal, Journal of Business Research, and Management and Organization Review). Eleven journals have published two articles, and finally fifty-seven journals have published only one article. Table 2 also indicates that this study is related to other topics (for instance, strategy, human resources, or entrepreneurship, among others). 1

Fig. 3 represents the most productive universities. It is important to mention that in this study the first university of each author has been selected, rejecting other additional institutions according to the author's institutional information. Thus, the first institution is the University of Reading with a total of eight articles published, followed by the University of Manchester, University of Leeds, and Uppsala University (each one with six articles); after them, the Duke University, the Rutgers University, and the Temple University (each one with five articles). Twenty-nine universities are included in 113 articles.

Most productive universities.

Finally, Fig. 4 shows the distribution of the research topic according to the countries of origin of the authors. Overall, the United States of America (frequency in articles = 80; 33.90%), England (52; 22.03%), China (24; 10.17%), Australia (21; 8.90%), Canada (13; 5.51%), and Italy (12; 5.08%) are the most prominent countries. Twenty-three countries were included in the sample. A country is considered part of this figure if it appears in at least three articles.

Most prominent countries.

3.2. Thematic analysis

The current state of the literature is characterized by its complexity and fragmentation. As previously reported, 3064 keywords (authors’ keywords and keywords plus) were counted, analysed and categorized. Some of the most prominent keywords, with minimum occurrences of ten, are showed in Table 4 ; the semantic difference between singular and plural forms is not considered. Obviously, “innovation” and “international business” are the most relevant concepts among the ones displayed. These two keywords together, along with the other five keywords, influence four categories. Subsequently, “multinational corporation” and “knowledge” are the most common keywords in this research work.

Themes of investigation identified.

Thus, this section synthesizes the results of this study. Four themes of investigation about the relationship between innovation and international business are suggested: Innovative activities of multinational corporations, Global value chains, Innovation in emerging economies, and Cross-border knowledge. This thematic analysis allows to answer the RQ1 posed earlier, that is to say: “What themes about innovation and international business have been studied jointly to date?” Consequently, it provides the occasion to have a more complete understanding of the research topic within a comprehensive and multidimensional framework.

3.2.1. Innovative activities of multinational corporations

A classic topic in international business research is the multinational corporation. The widest theme of investigation studies the relationship between innovation and the multinational corporation because, as Venaik et al. [ 42 ] assert, the international business literature has placed ever-greater emphasis on the role that learning and innovation play in determining multinational corporation performance.

It is common to conceive multinational corporations as a set of geographically disseminated subsidiaries that are combinations of heterogeneous technology competencies and product market responsibilities [ 43 ] or, in previous years, as firms that control and manage production establishments located in at least two countries [ 44 ]. Competitive success hinges on a multinational corporation's ability to use effectively available knowledge, and to combine it with knowledge from other locations [ 45 ]. Therefore, by interacting with locations multinational corporations have the possibility to organize their activities for balancing the exploitation of their current knowledge base and that of the new knowledge bases [ 46 ].

Knowledge that is complex to measure [ 47 ] has been recognized as critical for subsidiaries' power [ 48 ] and its transfer is driven by subunits’ motivation: subunits whose activities are mostly complementary have a natural motivation to collaborate and to ensure that the transferred knowledge is adopted, while subunits with surrogate activity relationships are less motivated [ 49 ]; consequently Miller et al. [ 50 ] assert that the use of distant knowledge contributes to innovation.

The location choice for R&D subsidiaries has been a topic of interest for researchers [ 51 ] since national subsidiaries carry out different tasks in the distinct processes of creation and innovation in multinational corporations [ 52 , 53 ]. Moreover, according to Frost et al. [ 54 ], the formation of centres of excellence in foreign subsidiaries of multinational corporations is shaped by the conditions of the subsidiary's local environment, the fundamental role played by parent firm investment as well as the role of internal and external organizations in the development of subsidiary capabilities. As Castellani et al. [ 55 ] argue, multinational corporations have organizational and technical competencies that enable them to transfer knowledge within their internal networks at a relatively low cost, so that geographic distance has a relatively low impact on international R&D investments. Nevertheless, the within-country cultural distance between subsidiaries influences headquarters to transfer projects between those same subsidiaries [ 56 ].

Therefore, the degree to which the business model links to local idiosyncrasies, local knowledge, or local innovation, impacts on the business model-related specific advantages [ 57 ]. In this context, Cantwell [ 58 ] claims that changes in the environment for international business activities have facilitated more open networked formations. Such cooperation will often take place within the field of the multinational corporation orchestrated innovation network which may include open innovation activity [ 59 ]. Prashantham and Birkinshaw [ 60 ] add that multinational corporations can cooperate with small and medium sized-enterprises as a specific type of host country business stakeholder, although the extent to that cooperation being relatively weak or not is a result of the compatibility between the intents of these disparate sets of firms.

3.2.2. Global value chains

In recent years, firms have been increasingly implementing strategies to take advantage of the comparative advantages of locations. This results in a wider geographic dispersion of firms' activities, with direct implications for creative industries’ global value [ 61 ]. Buckley [ 62 ] proposes the concept of global factory as a structure through which multinational corporations integrate their global strategies through a combination of innovation, distribution and production of goods and services. The increasing international fragmentation of economic activity gives rise to the global value chain research stream, a conceptual approach that deals with managing disaggregated and geographically dispersed value chains of multinational corporations (see, for instance, Refs. [ [63] , [64] , [65] , [66] ]).

The global value chain concept recognizes that such value-creating chains were not restricted solely to commodities but could also be extended across manufacturing and indeed to services [ 67 ]. Large multinational corporations operate in global innovation systems that are highly complex and so interdependent that the sources of new knowledge creation are hard to pinpoint [ 68 ].

Traditionally, the cluster approach emphasizes horizontal links between firms and local organizations [ 69 ] and from a network perspective, the cluster is a mechanism for the share of knowledge and learning [ 70 ] and also to innovate [ 71 ]. Nevertheless, the global value chain is strongly related with the analysis of clusters in the globalization era [ [72] , [73] , [74] , [75] ] because the need to integrate the global industry and local cluster levels is a basic one [ 64 ]. As Carloni [ 76 ] develops, clusters are supporters and accelerators of internationalization processes. Moreover, the existence of strong local innovation systems tends to be a prerequisite to guarantee sustained learning through global value chain participation [ 77 ].

Overall, participation in the global value chain is positively related to the innovation result of a country, which suggests that the international fragmentation of production may be a channel that allows international technology transfer from developed to developing countries [ 78 ]. Integration in the global value chain is perceived as a fundamental way for companies in developing countries to access knowledge to innovate [ 79 ] and to access larger markets and new technologies too [ 80 ].

3.2.3. Innovation in emerging economies

Emerging economies are low-income, rapid-growth countries using economic liberalization as their primary engine of growth [ 81 ]. Since the end of the 20th century, emerging economies, or what is the same, emerging markets, constitute the major growth opportunity in the world economic order and their potential has created a shift in multinational corporations [ 82 ] seeking to do business in emerging economies with manifold stakeholders benefited [ 83 ], although characteristics of internationalization of emerging market multinational enterprises investment simultaneously have positive and negative development consequences in their home countries [ 84 ]. In any case, multinational corporation subsidiaries and local institutions can help emerging market stakeholders, as suppliers [ 85 ].

Innovation is an important driver of economic growth in emerging economies [ 86 ]. In this context, for instance, innovation has helped develop solutions for consumers at the bottom of the pyramid [ 87 ] and middle-class consumers [ 88 ]. Emerging economies have certain characteristics, such as immature capital markets, lack of resources for innovation, and poor legal framework to protect property rights [ 89 ], that make the innovation process different from developed countries, despite having recently begun to innovate at a rapid rate, regarding the challenges they face [ 90 ]. Moreover, developing country difficulties can foster innovation capabilities and international competition [ 91 ] since in emerging markets a company gains advantage by learning to improvise with scarce resources and, in the process, to become more innovative than its competition [ 92 ]. Summing up, as Anand et al. [ 93 ] claim, innovation to and from emerging economies is a systemic outcome of an entire innovation milieu and both firms and countries are heterogeneous, following each one an idiosyncratic path in its evolution.

3.2.4. Cross-border knowledge

International business and cross-border flows of trade and investment significantly impact on the economic growth, employment and innovation potential of countries [ 64 ]. In addition, the rapid reshaping of the global economic order requires fundamental changes in international business; as a result, innovation networks will require novel reconfigurations [ 94 , 95 ]. Thus, Cantwell [ 3 ] remembers that there has been an increasing awareness of the importance of absorptive capacity on the part of firms [ 96 ]. In this same line, Contreras et al. [ 97 ] show that companies should have an organizational climate that allows them to acquire and transform knowledge in order to increase their innovativeness and be more competitive in a globalized world. Having this in mind, firms and locations co-evolve with one another, and it is possible to appreciate the rise of knowledge connectivity in innovation systems, that is a new underlying reality of the international business field [ 98 ]. The dynamics of place, space and organization continually generate new domains within which knowledge is leveraged in unique ways [ 99 ]. Knowledge circulates through two types of networks; on the one hand, organization-based linkages, or in other words, pipelines [ 100 ] and, on the other, personal relationships [ 73 ]. Accordingly, digital platforms and ecosystems are a major venue for innovation and have considerable implications for international business [ 101 , 102 ].

Multinational enterprises and subnational governments have increased their level of cooperative activity and create the basis for sustainable economic growth [ 103 ]. Discontinuities between nation-states and spatial heterogeneity within national boundaries are a relevant part of international business with different reasons, such as the historical role of national borders, the magnitude of national governments in international trade, the importance of national institutions in the formulation of business strategy and the decision making and the availability of data [ 104 ]. Hence, it is necessary to refer to the concept of global cities, or in other words, the centres of political power, corporate decision-making, knowledge generation and the exchange and movements of human capital and ideas [ 105 ]. Goerzen et al. [ 106 ] argue that distinctive characteristics of global cities (global interconnectedness, cosmopolitanism, and abundance of advanced production services) help multinational corporations to overcome the costs of doing business abroad. Nevertheless, global cities are not always necessarily the key locations for future multinational investments since knowledge and technology as well as the connection with the capabilities and company goals are crucial [ 107 ]. In any case, as Van Burg et al. [ 108 ] remember, organizational actors’ decisions about interorganizational knowledge transfer might change over time because unforeseen events can prompt actors to quite radically reframe future developments as opportunities or threats.

4. Discussion

This paper performs a systematic literature review of the relationship between innovation and international business. Particularly, using a qualitative/interpretative methodology, evolutionary trends have been recognized and are described in detail. 236 articles were published during the depicted study period 1993–2020. The largest number of articles was published during 2020, highlighting the topicality of the subject. Moreover, to enrich this section, the most recent works are included. The results of this research provide an overview of the knowledge structure of innovation and international business. The results highlight four themes of investigation within a comprehensive and multidimensional framework: Innovative activities of multinational corporations, Global value chains, Innovation in emerging economies, and Cross-border knowledge.

About the first theme, this systematic literature review shows that the multinational corporation is the most important kind of firm for innovation development in the international scenery. Thus, the location choice for its subsidiaries and its local environment is basic for the innovations' development [ 51 , 52 ] and also for the geographies of innovation [ 109 ]. This agrees with a very current line of research, which shows that the growing tendency of local technological innovation of multinational corporations, together with the increasing relevance of subsidiaries, are promoting subsidiaries' engagement in conducting innovation activities [ 110 ]. In the same way, managers’ characteristics, such as prior multinational corporations work experience and industry experience, affect subsidiary innovation [ 111 ].

As previously reported, in the field of international business two models are basic; however, although the Uppsala model keeps capturing the interest of scholars and is still one of the most cited frameworks in this area [ 112 ], it is confirmed that the born global firms’ phenomenon is very present in current literature. As Hennart et al. [ 113 ] remember, born global firms make large foreign sales at birth or shortly afterwards since they own valuable resources (for instance, advanced technologies and a high international orientation), and specific internationalization strategies (such as networks). Given the nature of this study, it should be specified that innovation plays a relevant role in the creation of born global firms [ 114 , 115 ]; moreover, born global firms contend with environmental dynamism in global markets, compelling these companies to enhance their innovation capabilities [ 116 ].

The second theme reveals a new conceptual approach, the global value chains as referred in the relationship between multinational corporations and global innovation systems [ 64 ] in view of the fact that nowadays international lead firms integrate their geographically dispersed partners, specialized suppliers, and customers in these global value chains or global production networks [ 117 ]. This new conceptual approach is confirmed due to the necessity of the adoption of a more holistic view of global value chains since this action will provide a clearer picture of how the organization and outcomes of innovative activities have evolved in this specific context [ 118 ].

About the third theme, this study supports the forecasts that indicate that emerging economies will have more economic power in the upcoming years. Therefore, this stated theme emphasizes, in the context of innovation, the opportunities for multinational corporations, local institutions, and stakeholders [ 85 ]. In any case, legal systems in emerging countries must be strengthened by harder competition laws that encourage the kind of competition that is based on innovation [ 119 ]; moreover, emerging market multinational enterprises have consolidated their global presence recently, challenging international business’ theories [ 120 ]; consequently, strengths and weaknesses are more pronounced when firms face competitors from emerging markets [ 121 ].

Finally, the fourth theme is Cross-border knowledge, which, in the internationalization context, impacts on the potential innovation of the countries [ 64 ], requiring relevant changes in their innovation networks [ 95 ]. In this sense, interaction and communication among their different intra-organizational networks facilitate multinational corporation knowledge transfer [ 122 ], whereas born global firms exploit different types of knowledge and networks to develop international opportunities [ 123 ]. Consequently, Freixanet and Churakova [ 124 ] point out to a reduction in the transaction costs as companies gain internationalization knowledge. Hence, internationalized companies devote substantial efforts to deploying and maintaining digital platforms, which plays an increasingly important role in today's digitally connected world [ 125 ].

4.1. Limitations

This study is supported by official data from 236 articles located in the Web of Science database and it has followed a rigorous research methodology. However, the scope of this kind of study always tends to involve some limitations. Firstly, other databases (Scopus or Google Scholar, for instance) have been excluded from the search. Secondly, while keywords (as innovation and international business) have been selected to cover the chosen areas as completely as possible, it could still be possible that important contributions were missed. Furthermore, certain sources of information have been not targeted (meetings, review articles, books, and editorial materials, among others). It must also be taken into consideration that the only considered area of research has been the Business Economics area (other ones, such as Computer Science or Engineering were not considered relevant enough due to the topic of the current study). In order to finish, only English language publications have been included in this analysis (thus, other languages like Spanish, Korean, or Russian were eliminated). Overall, as Greenhalgh et al. [ 126 ] defend, the literature is complex and the approach is somewhat unconventional, leading to other researchers to inevitably identify a different set of primary sources; being this an inherent characteristic of any systematic review.

4.2. Recommendations for future research

This study has strong implications for researchers. Bearing in mind the results of this investigation, it is recommended to expand the scope of this specific study to related innovation and international business topics targeting opportunities for improvement in both areas. There are multiple themes that require further research. Thus, future studies should deepen into the relationship between those specific topics, although this subject could not be an easy one. As previously stated, to enrich this section, the most recent works have been included. The implications of this study allow to answer the RQ2 question posed earlier, that is to say: “Which themes about both areas require further research?”

For instance, the global value chain requires to be fully studied in order to address the participation of multinational corporations in an understandable way holding a comparative environment between countries [ 127 ] since, as Buciuni and Pisano [ 128 ] confirm, there are a plurality of global value chain structures and a variety of innovation models within the global value chain. Similarly, the international business literature has given little attention to the comparison between the performance of advanced economy multinational corporations and the emerging market multinational corporations acting in international markets [ 129 ]. In the same way, in recent years open innovation has become a basic paradigm regarding the specific literature about innovation. However, throughout this research only one article [ 130 ] discusses the relationship between this topic and multinational corporations. In addition, a lack of specificity has been observed in the current literature regarding the role of social innovation in multinational corporation since only one recent article of this study [ 131 ] suggests to ask why and how this companies engage in social innovations. Likewise, although corporate social responsibility is a relevant factor in multinational corporation's competitiveness, only one depicted article [ 132 ] studies the development of corporate social responsibility in international business.

Furthermore, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on international business has barely been discussed; leading to only one article in this study addressing this question [ 133 ]. The Covid-19 pandemic is an external shock that has disrupted the foundations of our everyday life [ 134 ], not only by changing the structure of the world economy, but also by leading to lasting impacts on the international business strategies of multinational corporations [ 135 ]. This pandemic encourages multinational firms to diversify their supply chains in order to retain innovation opportunities [ 136 ] due to the uncertainty of some innovations during that time [ 137 ]. Hence, it is necessary to shed light on the long-term impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on international business, although the true effects on multinational corporations and global value chains can only be judged over time [ 138 ]. In any case, analysing the impact of this virus in the new context of the internationalized companies becomes a necessity.

Future studies could offer more evidence about different topics in the internationalization area (for instance, innovation network adaptation, economic performance, social media, stakeholders, and corruption). Also, the importance of human resource management in the international business context should be reviewed in the near future [ 139 ]. In the same way, the majority of the studies have examined outward firm internationalization; however the phenomenon of inbound internationalization is limited and, as Bianchi and Stoian [ 140 ] add, innovation drives that inbound internationalization.

On this basis, international business scholars may contribute to addressing these knowledge gaps through research and lecturing. Therefore, this study identifies a set of analysis challenges that can be used as a research agenda for the international business research community. To conclude the present section, final remarks for practitioners are advised since the results of this work could also be useful to CEOs and managers of multinational corporations, and overall, international entrepreneurs; particularly those working in the innovation field (management, processes, or networks, among others). From a managerial viewpoint, these practitioners have encountered difficulties to align their different strategies many times. Thus, these results provide guidance to practitioners that adjust their innovation strategies along with their international business strategies in a complex competitive environment. Likewise, this paper allows a better comprehension of the dynamic reality and identifies challenges that can be used and employed by decision-makers when dealing with the unforeseen internationalization process.

5. Conclusions

Nowadays, companies seek innovation in their countries of origin and abroad in order to compete globally. Therefore, innovation is a key factor for entering into international markets. This systematic literature review shows that there is indeed a strong relationship between innovation and international business; four themes of investigation within a comprehensive and multidimensional framework are found: Innovative activities of multinational corporations, Global value chains, Innovation in emerging economies, and Cross-border knowledge. These four research trends highlight the strategic importance of innovation in international business. Nevertheless, even when the number of articles addressing such topics is growing, this research work underlines that there is still a great opportunity for studying the relationship between those concepts. Thus, incorporating innovation into internationalized companies’ strategies is a main issue in current times, even more considering the changing and challenging world that we live in.

Author contribution statement

All authors listed have significantly contributed to the development and the writing of this article.

Funding statement

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, private, or not-for-profit sectors. The Open access publishing of the article was funded by University of Malaga.

Data availability statement

Declaration of interest’s statement.

The authors declare no competing interests.

1 The 236 articles were written by 575 authors. Table 3 shows the most relevant authors to the research topic. Authors such as Knight, Gary A.; Buckley, Peter J.; Cantwell, John; Coviello, Nicole; Kim, Daekwan; Kolk, Ans; Lewin, Arie Y.; Luo, Yadong; Massini, Silvia; Mudambi, Ram; Peeters, Carine; and Tippmann, Esther, have each one three or more publications during the 1993–2020 period. Furthermore, thirty-nine authors contributed to at least two articles each one.

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Life’s Work: An Interview with Hernan Diaz

Alison Beard

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author reflects on how literature shapes us and more.

In his novel Trust, which won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize, Diaz offered four contrasting perspectives on early-20th-century U.S. capitalism—a treatment that modern-day readers found deeply resonant. The author, who was born in Argentina, raised in Sweden, and now lives in the United States, says he likes to experiment with different voices and “mess with” American mythology. A longtime professor and academic editor, he published his first novel, In the Distance , a Pulitzer finalist, at age 44. Trust was his second.

Alison Beard is an executive editor at Harvard Business Review and previously worked as a reporter and editor at the Financial Times. A mom of two, she tries—and sometimes succeeds—to apply management best practices to her household. alisonwbeard

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Publics’ views on ethical challenges of artificial intelligence: a scoping review

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Published: 19 December 2023

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Helena Machado ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8554-7619 1 ,
Susana Silva ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1335-8648 2 &
Laura Neiva ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1954-7597 3

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This scoping review examines the research landscape about publics’ views on the ethical challenges of AI. To elucidate how the concerns voiced by the publics are translated within the research domain, this study scrutinizes 64 publications sourced from PubMed ® and Web of Science™. The central inquiry revolves around discerning the motivations, stakeholders, and ethical quandaries that emerge in research on this topic. The analysis reveals that innovation and legitimation stand out as the primary impetuses for engaging the public in deliberations concerning the ethical dilemmas associated with AI technologies. Supplementary motives are rooted in educational endeavors, democratization initiatives, and inspirational pursuits, whereas politicization emerges as a comparatively infrequent incentive. The study participants predominantly comprise the general public and professional groups, followed by AI system developers, industry and business managers, students, scholars, consumers, and policymakers. The ethical dimensions most commonly explored in the literature encompass human agency and oversight, followed by issues centered on privacy and data governance. Conversely, topics related to diversity, nondiscrimination, fairness, societal and environmental well-being, technical robustness, safety, transparency, and accountability receive comparatively less attention. This paper delineates the concrete operationalization of calls for public involvement in AI governance within the research sphere. It underscores the intricate interplay between ethical concerns, public involvement, and societal structures, including political and economic agendas, which serve to bolster technical proficiency and affirm the legitimacy of AI development in accordance with the institutional norms that underlie responsible research practices.

The Ethical Implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) For Meaningful Work

Sarah Bankins & Paul Formosa

The Ethics of AI Ethics: An Evaluation of Guidelines

Thilo Hagendorff

Research Methodology: An Introduction

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

Current advances in the research, development, and application of artificial intelligence (AI) systems have yielded a far-reaching discourse on AI ethics that is accompanied by calls for AI technology to be democratically accountable and trustworthy from the publics’ Footnote 1 perspective [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]. Consequently, several ethics guidelines for AI have been released in recent years. As of early 2020, there were 167 AI ethics guidelines documents around the world [ 6 ]. Organizations such as the European Commission (EC), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognize that public participation is crucial for ensuring the responsible development and deployment of AI technologies, Footnote 2 emphasizing the importance of inclusivity, transparency, and democratic processes to effectively address the societal implications of AI [ 11 , 12 ]. These efforts were publicly announced as aiming to create a common understanding of ethical AI development and foster responsible practices that address societal concerns while maximizing AI’s potential benefits [ 13 , 14 ]. The concept of human-centric AI has emerged as a key principle in many of these regulatory initiatives, with the purposes of ensuring that human values are incorporated into the design of algorithms, that humans do not lose control over automated systems, and that AI is used in the service of humanity and the common good to improve human welfare and human rights [ 15 ]. Using the same rationale, the opacity and rapid diffusion of AI have prompted debate about how such technologies ought to be governed and which actors and values should be involved in shaping governance regimes [ 1 , 2 ].

While industry and business have traditionally tended to be seen as having no or little incentive to engage with ethics or in dialogue, AI leaders currently sponsor AI ethics [ 6 , 16 , 17 ]. However, some concerns call for ethics, public participation, and human-centric approaches in areas such as AI with high economic and political importance to be used within an instrumental rationale by the AI industry. A growing corpus of critical literature has conceived the development of AI ethics as efforts to reduce ethics to another form of industrial capital or to coopt and capture researchers as part of efforts to control public narratives [ 12 , 18 ]. According to some authors, one of the reasons why ethics is so appealing to many AI companies is to calm critical voices from the publics; therefore, AI ethics is seen as a way of gaining or restoring trust, credibility and support, as well as legitimation, while criticized practices are calmed down to maintain the agenda of industry and science [ 12 , 17 , 19 , 20 ].

Critical approaches also point out that despite regulatory initiatives explicitly invoking the need to incorporate human values into AI systems, they have the main objective of setting rules and standards to enable AI-based products and services to circulate in markets [ 20 , 21 , 22 ] and might serve to avoid or delay binding regulation [ 12 , 23 ]. Other critical studies argue that AI ethics fails to mitigate the racial, social, and environmental damage of AI technologies in any meaningful sense [ 24 ] and excludes alternative ethical practices [ 25 , 26 ]. As explained by Su [ 13 ], in a paper that considers the promise and perils of international human rights in AI governance, while human rights can serve as an authoritative source for holding AI developers accountable, its application to AI governance in practice shows a lack of effectiveness, an inability to effect structural change, and the problem of cooptation.

In a value analysis of AI national strategies, Wilson [ 5 ] concludes that the publics are primarily cast as recipients of AI’s abstract benefits, users of AI-driven services and products, a workforce in need of training and upskilling, or an important element for thriving democratic society that unlocks AI's potential. According to the author, when AI strategies articulate a governance role for the publics, it is more like an afterthought or rhetorical gesture than a clear commitment to putting “society-in-the-loop” into AI design and implementation [ 5 , pp. 7–8]. Another study of how public participation is framed in AI policy documents [ 4 ] shows that high expectations are assigned to public participation as a solution to address concerns about the concentration of power, increases in inequality, lack of diversity, and bias. However, in practice, this framing thus far gives little consideration to some of the challenges well known for researchers and practitioners of public participation with science and technology, such as the difficulty of achieving consensus among diverse societal views, the high resource requirements for public participation exercises, and the risks of capture by vested interests [ 4 , pp. 170–171]. These studies consistently reveal a noteworthy pattern: while references to public participation in AI governance are prevalent in the majority of AI national strategies, they tend to remain abstract and are often overshadowed by other roles, values, and policy concerns.

Some authors thus contended that the increasing demand to involve multiple stakeholders in AI governance, including the publics, signifies a discernible transformation within the sphere of science and technology policy. This transformation frequently embraces the framework of “responsible innovation”, Footnote 3 which emphasizes alignment with societal imperatives, responsiveness to evolving ethical, social, and environmental considerations, and the participation of the publics as well as traditionally defined stakeholders [ 3 , 28 ]. When investigating how the conception and promotion of public participation in European science and technology policies have evolved, Macq, Tancoine, and Strasser [ 29 ] distinguish between “participation in decision-making” (pertaining to science policy decisions or decisions on research topics) and “participation in knowledge and innovation-making”. They find that “while public participation had initially been conceived and promoted as a way to build legitimacy of research policy decisions by involving publics into decision-making processes, it is now also promoted as a way to produce better or more knowledge and innovation by involving publics into knowledge and innovation-making processes, and thus building legitimacy for science and technology as a whole” [ 29 , p. 508]. Although this shift in science and technology research policies has been noted, there exists a noticeable void in the literature in regard to understanding how concrete research practices incorporate public perspectives and embrace multistakeholder approaches, inclusion, and dialogue.

While several studies have delved into the framing of the publics’ role within AI governance in several instances (from Big Tech initiatives to hiring ethics teams and guidelines issued from multiple institutions to governments’ national policies related to AI development), discussing the underlying motivations driving the publics’ participation and the ethical considerations resulting from such involvement, there remains a notable scarcity of knowledge concerning how publicly voiced concerns are concretely translated into research efforts [ 30 , pp. 3–4, 31 , p. 8, 6]. To address this crucial gap, our scoping review endeavors to analyse the research landscape about the publics’ views on the ethical challenges of AI. Our primary objective is to uncover the motivations behind involving the publics in research initiatives, identify the segments of the publics that are considered in these studies, and illuminate the ethical concerns that warrant specific attention. Through this scoping review, we aim to enhance the understanding of the political and social backdrop within which debates and prior commitments regarding values and conditions for publics’ participation in matters related to science and technology are formulated and expressed [ 29 , 32 , 33 ] and which specific normative social commitments are projected and performed by institutional science [ 34 , p. 108, [ 35 , p. 856].

We followed the guidance for descriptive systematic scoping reviews by Levac et al. [ 36 ], based on the methodological framework developed by Arksey and O’Malley [ 37 ]. The steps of the review are listed below:

2.1 Stage 1: identifying the research question

The central question guiding this scoping review is the following: What motivations, publics and ethical issues emerge in research addressing the publics’ views on the ethical challenges of AI? We ask:

What motivations for engaging the publics with AI technologies are articulated?

Who are the publics invited?

Which ethical issues concerning AI technologies are perceived as needing the participation of the publics?

2.2 Stage 2: identifying relevant studies

A search of the publications on PubMed® and Web of Science™ was conducted on 19 May 2023, with no restriction set for language or time of publication, using the following search expression: (“AI” OR “artificial intelligence”) AND (“public” OR “citizen”) AND “ethics”. The search was followed by backwards reference tracking, examining the references of the selected publications based on full-text assessment.

2.3 Stage 3: study selection

The inclusion criteria allowed only empirical, peer-reviewed, original full-length studies written in English to explore publics’ views on the ethical challenges of AI as their main outcome. The exclusion criteria disallowed studies focusing on media discourses and texts. The titles of 1612 records were retrieved. After the removal of duplicates, 1485 records were examined. Two authors (HM and SS) independently screened all the papers retrieved initially, based on the title and abstract, and afterward, based on the full text. This was crosschecked and discussed in both phases, and perfect agreement was achieved.

The screening process is summarized in Fig. 1 . Based on title and abstract assessments, 1265 records were excluded because they were neither original full-length peer-reviewed empirical studies nor focused on the publics’ views on the ethical challenges of AI. Of the 220 fully read papers, 54 met the inclusion criteria. After backwards reference tracking, 10 papers were included, and the final review was composed of 64 papers.

Flowchart showing the search results and screening process for the scoping review of publics’ views on ethical challenges of AI

2.4 Stage 4: charting the data

A standardized data extraction sheet was initially developed by two authors (HM and SS) and completed by two coders (SS and LN), including both quantitative and qualitative data (Supplemental Table “Data Extraction”). We used MS Excel to chart the data from the studies.

The two coders independently charted the first 10 records, with any disagreements or uncertainties in abstractions being discussed and resolved by consensus. The forms were further refined and finalized upon consensus before completing the data charting process. Each of the remaining records was charted by one coder. Two meetings were held to ensure consistency in data charting and to verify accuracy. The first author (HM) reviewed the results.

Descriptive data for the characterization of studies included information about the authors and publication year, the country where the study was developed, study aims, type of research (quantitative, qualitative, or other), assessment of the publics’ views, and sample. The types of research participants recruited as publics were coded into 11 categories: developers of AI systems; managers from industry and business; representatives of governance bodies; policymakers; academics and researchers; students; professional groups; general public; local communities; patients/consumers; and other (specify).

Data on the main motivations for researching the publics’ views on the ethical challenges of AI were also gathered. Authors’ accounts of their motivations were synthesized into eight categories according to the coding framework proposed by Weingart and colleagues [ 33 ] concerning public engagement with science and technology-related issues: education (to inform and educate the public about AI, improving public access to scientific knowledge); innovation (to promote innovation, the publics are considered to be a valuable source of knowledge and are called upon to contribute to knowledge production, bridge building and including knowledge outside ‘formal’ ethics); legitimation (to promote public trust in and acceptance of AI, as well as of policies supporting AI); inspiration (to inspire and raise interest in AI, to secure a STEM-educated labor force); politicization (to address past political injustices and historical exclusion); democratization (to empower citizens to participate competently in society and/or to participate in AI); other (specify); and not clearly evident.

Based on the content analysis technique [ 38 ], ethical issues perceived as needing the participation of the publics were identified through quotations stated in the studies. These were then summarized in seven key ethical principles, according to the proposal outlined by the EC's Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI [ 39 ]: human agency and oversight; technical robustness and safety; privacy and data governance; transparency; diversity, nondiscrimination and fairness; societal and environmental well-being; and accountability.

2.5 Stage 5: collating, summarizing, and reporting the results

The main characteristics of the 64 studies included can be found in Table 1 . Studies were grouped by type of research and ordered by the year of publication. The findings regarding the publics invited to participate are presented in Fig. 2 . The main motivations for engaging the publics with AI technologies and the ethical issues perceived as needing the participation of the publics are summarized in Tables 2 and 3 , respectively. The results are presented below in a narrative format, with complimentary tables and figures to provide a visual representation of key findings.

Publics invited to engage with issues framed as ethical challenges of AI

There are some methodological limitations in this scoping review that should be taken into account when interpreting the results. The use of only two search engines may preclude the inclusion of relevant studies, although supplemented by scanning the reference list of eligible studies. An in-depth analysis of the topics explored within each of the seven key ethical principles outlined by the EC's Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI was not conducted. This assessment would lead to a detailed understanding of the publics’ views on ethical challenges of AI.

3.1 Study characteristics

Most of the studies were in recent years, with 35 of the 64 studies being published in 2022 and 2023. Journals were listed either on the databases related to Science Citation Index Expanded (n = 25) or the Social Science Citation Index (n = 23), with fewer journals indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (n = 7) and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (n = 2). Works covered a wide range of fields, including health and medicine (services, policy, medical informatics, medical ethics, public and environmental health); education; business, management and public administration; computer science; information sciences; engineering; robotics; communication; psychology; political science; and transportation. Beyond the general assessment of publics’ attitudes toward, preferences for, and expectations and concerns about AI, the publics’ views on ethical challenges of AI technologies have been studied mainly concerning healthcare and public services and less frequently regarding autonomous vehicles (AV), education, robotic technologies, and smart homes. Most of the studies (n = 47) were funded by research agencies, with 7 papers reporting conflicts of interest.

Quantitative research approaches have assessed the publics’ views on the ethical challenges of AI mainly through online or web-based surveys and experimental platforms, relying on Delphi studies, moral judgment studies, hypothetical vignettes, and choice-based/comparative conjoint surveys. The 25 qualitative studies collected data mainly by semistructured or in-depth interviews. Analysis of publicly available material reporting on AI-use cases, focus groups, a post hoc self-assessment, World Café, participatory research, and practice-based design research were used once or twice. Multi or mixed-methods studies relied on surveys with open-ended and closed questions, frequently combined with focus groups, in-depth interviews, literature reviews, expert opinions, examinations of relevant curriculum examples, tests, and reflexive writings.

The studies were performed (where stated) in a wide variety of countries, including the USA and Australia. More than half of the studies (n = 38) were conducted in a single country. Almost all studies used nonprobability sampling techniques. In quantitative studies, sample sizes varied from 2.3 M internet users in an online experimental platform study [ 40 ] to 20 participants in a Delphi study [ 41 ]. In qualitative studies, the samples varied from 123 participants in 21 focus groups [ 42 ] to six expert interviews [ 43 ]. In multi or mixed-methods studies, samples varied from 2036 participants [ 44 ] to 21 participants [ 45 ].

3.2 Motivations for engaging the publics

The qualitative synthesis of the motivations for researching the publics’ views on the ethical challenges of AI is presented in Table 2 and ordered by the number of studies referencing them in the scoping review. More than half of the studies (n = 37) addressed a single motivation. Innovation (n = 33) and legitimation (n = 29) proved to have the highest relevance as motivations for engaging the publics in the ethical challenges of AI technologies, as articulated in 15 studies. Additional motivations are rooted in education (n = 13), democratization (n = 11), and inspiration (n = 9). Politicization was mentioned in five studies. Although they were not authors’ motivations, few studies were found to have educational [ 46 , 47 ], democratization [ 48 , 49 ], and legitimation or inspirations effects [ 50 ].

To consider the publics as a valuable source of knowledge that can add real value to innovation processes in both the private and public sectors was the most frequent motivation mentioned in the literature. The call for public participation is rooted in the aspiration to add knowledge outside “formal” ethics at three interrelated levels. First, at a societal level, by asking what kind of AI we want as a society based on novel experiments on public policy preferences [ 51 ] and on the study of public perceptions, values, and concerns regarding AI design, development, and implementation in domains such as health care [ 46 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 ], public and social services [ 49 , 56 , 57 , 58 ], AV [ 59 , 60 ] and journalism [ 61 ]. Second, at a practical level, the literature provides insights into the perceived usefulness of AI applications [ 62 , 63 ] and choices between boosting developers’ voluntary adoption of ethical standards or imposing ethical standards via regulation and oversight [ 64 ], as well as suggesting specific guidance for the development and use of AI systems [ 65 , 66 , 67 ]. Finally, at a theoretical level, literature expands the social-technical perspective [ 68 ] and motivated-reasoning theory [ 69 ].

Legitimation was also a frequent motivation for engaging the publics. It was underpinned by the need for public trust in and social licences for implementing AI technologies. To ensure the long-term social acceptability of AI as a trustworthy technology [ 70 , 71 ] was perceived as essential to support its use and to justify its implementation. In one study [ 72 ], the authors developed an AI ethics scale to quantify how AI research is accepted in society and which area of ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) people are most concerned with. Public trust in and acceptance of AI is claimed by social institutions such as governments, private sectors, industry bodies, and the science community, behaving in a trustworthy manner, respecting public concerns, aligning with societal values, and involving members of the publics in decision-making and public policy [ 46 , 48 , 73 , 74 , 75 ], as well as in the responsible design and integration of AI technologies [ 52 , 76 , 77 ].

Education, democratization, and inspiration had a more modest presence as motivations to explore the publics’ views on the ethical challenges of AI. Considering the emergence of new roles and tasks related to AI, the literature has pointed to the public need to ensure the safe use of AI technologies by incorporating ethics and career futures into the education, preparation, and training of both middle school and university students and the current and future health workforce. Improvements in education and guidance for developers and older adults were also noticed. The views of the publics on what needs to be learned or how this learning may be supported or assessed were perceived as crucial. In one study [ 78 ], the authors developed strategies that promote learning related to AI through collaborative media production, connecting computational thinking to civic issues and creative expression. In another study [ 79 ], real-world scenarios were successfully used as a novel approach to teaching AI ethics. Rhim et al. [ 76 ] provided AV moral behavior design guidelines for policymakers, developers, and the publics by reducing the abstractness of AV morality.

Studies motivated by democratization promoted broader public participation in AI, aiming to empower citizens both to express their understandings, apprehensions, and concerns about AI [ 43 , 78 , 80 , 81 ] and to address ethical issues in AI as critical consumers, (potential future) developers of AI technologies or would-be participants in codesign processes [ 40 , 43 , 45 , 78 , 82 , 83 ]. Understanding the publics’ views on the ethical challenges of AI is expected to influence companies and policymakers [ 40 ]. In one study [ 45 ], the authors explored how a digital app might support citizens’ engagement in AI governance by informing them, raising public awareness, measuring publics’ attitudes and supporting collective decision-making.

Inspiration revolved around three main motivations: to raise public interest in AI [ 46 , 48 ]; to guide future empirical and design studies [ 79 ]; and to promote developers’ moral awareness through close collaboration between all those involved in the implementation, use, and design of AI technologies [ 46 , 61 , 78 , 84 , 85 ].

Politicization was the less frequent motivation reported in the literature for engaging the publics. Recognizing the need for mitigation of social biases [ 86 ], public participation to address historically marginalized populations [ 78 , 87 ], and promoting social equity [ 79 ] were the highlighted motives.

3.3 The invited publics

Study participants were mostly the general public and professional groups, followed by developers of AI systems, managers from industry and business, students, academics and researchers, patients/consumers, and policymakers (Fig. 2 ). The views of local communities and representatives of governance bodies were rarely assessed.

Representative samples of the general public were used in five papers related to studies conducted in the USA [ 88 ], Denmark [ 73 ], Germany [ 48 ], and Austria [ 49 , 63 ]. The remaining random or purposive samples from the general public comprised mainly adults and current and potential users of AI products and services, with few studies involving informal caregivers or family members of patients (n = 3), older people (n = 2), and university staff (n = 2).

Samples of professional groups included mainly healthcare professionals (19 out of 24 studies). Educators, law enforcement, media practitioners, and GLAM professionals (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) were invited once.

3.4 Ethical issues

The ethical issues concerning AI technologies perceived as needing the participation of the publics are depicted in Table 3 . They were mapped by measuring the number of studies referencing them in the scoping review. Human agency and oversight (n = 55) was the most frequent ethical aspect that was studied in the literature, followed by those centered on privacy and data governance (n = 43). Diversity, nondiscrimination and fairness (n = 39), societal and environmental well-being (n = 39), technical robustness and safety (n = 38), transparency (n = 35), and accountability (n = 31) were less frequently discussed.

The concerns regarding human agency and oversight were the replacement of human beings by AI technologies and deskilling [ 47 , 55 , 67 , 74 , 75 , 89 , 90 ]; the loss of autonomy, critical thinking, and innovative capacities [ 50 , 58 , 61 , 77 , 78 , 83 , 85 , 90 ]; the erosion of human judgment and oversight [ 41 , 70 , 91 ]; and the potential for (over)dependence on technology and “oversimplified” decisions [ 90 ] due to the lack of publics’ expertise in judging and controlling AI technologies [ 68 ]. Beyond these ethical challenges, the following contributions of AI systems to empower human beings were noted: more fruitful and empathetic social relationships [ 47 , 68 , 90 ]; enhancing human capabilities and quality of life [ 68 , 70 , 74 , 83 , 92 ]; improving efficiency and productivity at work [ 50 , 53 , 62 , 65 , 83 ] by reducing errors [ 77 ], relieving the burden of professionals and/or increasing accuracy in decisions [ 47 , 55 , 90 ]; and facilitating and expanding access to safe and fair healthcare [ 42 , 53 , 54 ] through earlier diagnosis, increased screening and monitoring, and personalized prescriptions [ 47 , 90 ]. To foster human rights, allowing people to make informed decisions, the last say was up to the person themselves [ 42 , 43 , 46 , 55 , 64 , 67 , 73 , 76 ]. People should determine where and when to use automated functions and which functions to use [ 44 , 54 ], developing “job sharing” arrangements with machines and humans complementing and enriching each other [ 56 , 65 , 90 ]. The literature highlights the need to build AI systems that are under human control [ 48 , 70 ] whether to confirm or to correct the AI system’s outputs and recommendations [ 66 , 90 ]. Proper oversight mechanisms were seen as crucial to ensure accuracy and completeness, with divergent views about who should be involved in public participation approaches [ 86 , 87 ].

Data sharing and/or data misuse were considered the major roadblocks regarding privacy and data governance, with some studies pointing out distrust of participants related to commercial interests in health data [ 55 , 90 , 93 , 94 , 95 ] and concerns regarding risks of information getting into the hands of hackers, banks, employers, insurance companies, or governments [ 66 ]. As data are the backbone of AI, secure methods of data storage and protection are understood as needing to be provided from the input to the output data. Recognizing that in contemporary societies, people are aware of the consequences of smartphone use resulting in the minimization of privacy concerns [ 93 ], some studies have focused on the impacts of data breaches and loss of privacy and confidentiality [ 43 , 45 , 46 , 60 , 62 , 80 ] in relation to health-sensitive personal data [ 46 , 93 ], potentially affecting more vulnerable populations, such as senior citizens and mentally ill patients [ 82 , 90 ] as well as those at young ages [ 50 ], and when journalistic organizations collect user data to provide personalized news suggestions [ 61 ]. The need to find a balance between widening access to data and ensuring confidentiality and respect for privacy [ 53 ] was often expressed in three interrelated terms: first, the ability of data subjects to be fully informed about how data will be used and given the option of providing informed consent [ 46 , 58 , 78 ] and controlling personal information about oneself [ 57 ]; second, the need for regulation [ 52 , 65 , 87 ], with one study reporting that AI developers complain about the complexity, slowness, and obstacles created by regulation [ 64 ]; and last, the testing and certification of AI-enabled products and services [ 71 ]. The study by De Graaf et al. [ 91 ] discussed the robots’ right to store and process the data they collect, while Jenkins and Draper [ 42 ] explored less intrusive ways in which the robot could use information to report back to carers about the patient’s adherence to healthcare.

Studies discussing diversity, nondiscrimination, and fairness have pointed to the development of AI systems that reflect and reify social inequalities [ 45 , 78 ] through nonrepresentative datasets [ 55 , 58 , 96 , 97 ] and algorithmic bias [ 41 , 45 , 85 , 98 ] that might benefit some more than others. This could have multiple negative consequences for different groups based on ethnicity, disease, physical disability, age, gender, culture, or socioeconomic status [ 43 , 55 , 58 , 78 , 82 , 87 ], from the dissemination of hate speech [ 79 ] to the exacerbation of discrimination, which negatively impacts peace and harmony within society [ 58 ]. As there were cross-country differences and issue variations in the publics’ views of discriminatory bias [ 51 , 72 , 73 ], fostering diversity, inclusiveness, and cultural plurality [ 61 ] was perceived as crucial to ensure the transferability/effectiveness of AI systems in all social groups [ 60 , 94 ]. Diversity, nondiscrimination, and fairness were also discussed as a means to help reduce health inequalities [ 41 , 67 , 90 ], to compensate for human preconceptions about certain individuals [ 66 ], and to promote equitable distribution of benefits and burdens [ 57 , 71 , 80 , 93 ], namely, supporting access by all to the same updated and high-quality AI systems [ 50 ]. In one study [ 83 ], students provided constructive solutions to build an unbiased AI system, such as using a dataset that includes a diverse dataset engaging people of different ages, genders, ethnicities, and cultures. In another study [ 86 ], participants recommended diverse approaches to mitigate algorithmic bias, from open disclosure of limitations to consumer and patient engagement, representation of marginalized groups, incorporation of equity considerations into sampling methods and legal recourse, and identification of a wide range of stakeholders who may be responsible for addressing AI bias: developers, healthcare workers, manufacturers and vendors, policymakers and regulators, AI researchers and consumers.

Impacts on employment and social relationships were considered two major ethical challenges regarding societal and environmental well-being. The literature has discussed tensions between job creation [ 51 ] and job displacement [ 42 , 90 ], efficiency [ 90 ], and deskilling [ 57 ]. The concerns regarding future social relationships were the loss of empathy, humanity, and/or sensitivity [ 52 , 66 , 90 , 99 ]; isolation and fewer social connections [ 42 , 47 , 90 ]; laziness [ 50 , 83 ]; anxious counterreactions [ 83 , 99 ]; communication problems [ 90 ]; technology dependence [ 60 ]; plagiarism and cheating in education [ 50 ]; and becoming too emotionally attached to a robot [ 65 ]. To overcome social unawareness [ 56 ] and lack of acceptance [ 65 ] due to financial costs [ 56 , 90 ], ecological burden [ 45 ], fear of the unknown [ 65 , 83 ] and/or moral issues [ 44 , 59 , 100 ], AI systems need to provide public benefit sharing [ 55 ], consider discrepancies between public discourse about AI and the utility of the tools in real-world settings and practices [ 53 ], conform to the best standards of sustainability and address climate change and environmental justice [ 60 , 71 ]. Successful strategies in promoting the acceptability of robots across contexts included an approachable and friendly looking as possible, but not too human-like [ 49 , 65 ], and working with, rather than in competition, with humans [ 42 ].

The publics were invited to participate in the following ethical issues related to technical robustness and safety: usability, reliability, liability, and quality assurance checks of AI tools [ 44 , 45 , 55 , 62 , 99 ]; validity of big data analytic tools [ 87 ]; the degree to which an AI system can perform tasks without errors or mistakes [ 50 , 57 , 66 , 84 , 90 , 93 ]; and needed resources to perform appropriate (cyber)security [ 62 , 101 ]. Other studies approached the need to consider both material and normative concerns of AI applications [ 51 ], namely, assuring that AI systems are developed responsibly with proper consideration of risks [ 71 ] and sufficient proof of benefits [ 96 ]. One study [ 64 ] highlighted that AI developers tend to be reluctant to recognize safety issues, bias, errors, and failures, and when they do so, they do so in a selective manner and in their terms by adopting positive-sounding professional jargon as AI robustness.

Some studies recognized the need for greater transparency that reduces the mystery and opaqueness of AI systems [ 71 , 82 , 101 ] and opens its “black box” [ 64 , 71 , 98 ]. Clear insights about “what AI is/is not” and “how AI technology works” (definition, applications, implications, consequences, risks, limitations, weaknesses, threats, rewards, strengths, opportunities) were considered as needed to debunk the myth about AI as an independent entity [ 53 ] and for providing sufficient information and understandable explanations of “what’s happening” to society and individuals [ 43 , 48 , 72 , 73 , 78 , 102 ]. Other studies considered that people, when using AI tools, should be made fully aware that these AI devices are capturing and using their data [ 46 ] and how data are collected [ 58 ] and used [ 41 , 46 , 93 ]. Other transparency issues reported in the literature included the need for more information about the composition of data training sets [ 55 ], how algorithms work [ 51 , 55 , 84 , 94 , 97 ], how AI makes a decision [ 57 ] and the motivations for that decision [ 98 ]. Transparency requirements were also addressed as needing the involvement of multiple stakeholders: one study reported that transparency requirements should be seen as a mediator of debate between experts, citizens, communities, and stakeholders [ 87 ] and cannot be reduced to a product feature, avoiding experiences where people feel overwhelmed by explanations [ 98 ] or “too much information” [ 66 ].

Accountability was perceived by the publics as an important ethical issue [ 48 ], while developers expressed mixed attitudes, from moral disengagement to a sense of responsibility and moral conflict and uncertainty [ 85 ]. The literature has revealed public skepticism regarding accountability mechanisms [ 93 ] and criticism about the shift of responsibility away from tech industries that develop and own AI technologies [ 53 , 68 ], as it opens space for users to assume their own individual responsibility [ 78 ]. This was the case in studies that explored accountability concerns regarding the assignment of fault and responsibility for car accidents using self-driving technology [ 60 , 76 , 77 , 88 ]. Other studies considered that more attention is needed to scrutinize each application across the AI life cycle [ 41 , 71 , 94 ], to explainability of AI algorithms that provide to the publics the cause of AI outcomes [ 58 ], and to regulations that assign clear responsibility concerning litigation and liability [ 52 , 89 , 101 , 103 ].

4 Discussion

Within the realm of research studies encompassed in the scoping review, the contemporary impetus for engaging the publics in ethical considerations related to AI predominantly revolves around two key motivations: innovation and legitimation. This might be explained by the current emphasis on responsible innovation, which values the publics’ participation in knowledge and innovation-making [ 29 ] within a prioritization of the instrumental role of science for innovation and economic return [ 33 ]. Considering the publics as a valuable source of knowledge that should be called upon to contribute to knowledge innovation production is underpinned by the desire for legitimacy, specifically centered around securing the publics’ endorsement of scientific and technological advancements [ 33 , 104 ]. Approaching the publics’ views on the ethical challenges of AI can also be used as a form of risk prevention to reduce conflict and close vital debates in contention areas [ 5 , 34 , 105 ].

A second aspect that stood out in this finding is a shift in the motivations frequently reported as central for engaging the publics with AI technologies. Previous studies analysing AI national policies and international guidelines addressing AI governance [ 3 , 4 , 5 ] and a study analysing science communication journals [ 33 ] highlighted education, inspiration and democratization as the most prominent motivations. Our scoping review did not yield similar findings, which might signal a departure, in science policy related to public participation, from the past emphasis on education associated with the deficit model of public understanding of science and democratization of the model of public engagement with science [ 106 , 107 ].

The underlying motives for the publics’ engagement raise the question of the kinds of publics it addresses, i.e., who are the publics that are supposed to be recruited as research participants [ 32 ]. Our findings show a prevalence of the general public followed by professional groups and developers of AI systems. The wider presence of the general public indicates not only what Hagendijk and Irwin [ 32 , p. 167] describe as a fashionable tendency in policy circles since the late 1990s, and especially in Europe, focused on engaging 'the public' in scientific and technological change but also the avoidance of the issues of democratic representation [ 12 , 18 ]. Additionally, the unspecificity of the “public” does not stipulate any particular action [ 24 ] that allows for securing legitimacy for and protecting the interests of a wide range of stakeholders [ 19 , 108 ] while bringing the risk of silencing the voices of the very publics with whom engagement is sought [ 33 ]. The focus on approaching the publics’ views on the ethical challenges of AI through the general public also demonstrates how seeking to “lay” people’s opinions may be driven by a desire to promote public trust and acceptance of AI developments, showing how science negotiates challenges and reinstates its authority [ 109 ].

While this strategy is based on nonscientific audiences or individuals who are not associated with any scientific discipline or area of inquiry as part of their professional activities, the converse strategy—i.e., involving professional groups and AI developers—is also noticeable in our findings. This suggests that technocratic expert-dominated approaches coexist with a call for more inclusive multistakeholder approaches [ 3 ]. This coexistence is reinforced by the normative principles of the “responsible innovation” framework, in particular the prescription that innovation should include the publics as well as traditionally defined stakeholders [ 3 , 110 ], whose input has become so commonplace that seeking the input of laypeople on emerging technologies is sometimes described as a “standard procedure” [ 111 , p. 153].

In the body of literature included in the scoping review, human agency and oversight emerged as the predominant ethical dimension under investigation. This finding underscores the pervasive significance attributed to human centricity, which is progressively integrated into public discourses concerning AI, innovation initiatives, and market-driven endeavours [ 15 , 112 ]. In our perspective, the importance given to human-centric AI is emblematic of the “techno-regulatory imaginary” suggested by Rommetveit and van Dijk [ 35 ] in their study about privacy engineering applied in the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. This term encapsulates the evolving collective vision and conceptualization of the role of technology in regulatory and oversight contexts. At least two aspects stand out in the techno-regulatory imaginary, as they are meant to embed technoscience in societally acceptable ways. First, it reinstates pivotal demarcations between humans and nonhumans while concurrently producing intensified blurring between these two realms. Second, the potential resolutions offered relate to embedding fundamental rights within the structural underpinnings of technological architectures [ 35 ].

Following human agency and oversight, the most frequent ethical issue discussed in the studies contained in our scoping review was privacy and data governance. Our findings evidence additional central aspects of the “techno-regulatory imaginary” in the sense that instead of the traditional regulatory sites, modes of protecting privacy and data are increasingly located within more privatized and business-oriented institutions [ 6 , 35 ] and crafted according to a human-centric view of rights. The focus on secure ways of data storage and protection as in need to be provided from the input to the output data, the testing and certification of AI-enabled products and services, the risks of data breaches, and calls for finding a balance between widening access to data and ensuring confidentiality and respect for privacy, exhibited by many studies in this scoping review, portray an increasing framing of privacy and data protection within technological and standardization sites. This tendency shows how forms of expertise for privacy and data protection are shifting away from traditional regulatory and legal professionals towards privacy engineers and risk assessors in information security and software development. Another salient element to highlight pertains to the distribution of responsibility for privacy and data governance [ 6 , 113 ] within the realm of AI development through engagement with external stakeholders, including users, governmental bodies, and regulatory authorities. It extends from an emphasis on issues derived from data sharing and data misuse to facilitating individuals to exercise control over their data and privacy preferences and to advocating for regulatory frameworks that do not impede the pace of innovation. This distribution of responsibility shared among the contributions and expectations of different actors is usually convoked when the operationalization of ethics principles conflicts with AI deployment [ 6 ]. In this sense, privacy and data governance are reconstituted as a “normative transversal” [ 113 , p. 20], both of which work to stabilize or close controversies, while their operationalization does not modify any underlying operations in AI development.

Diversity, nondiscrimination and fairness, societal and environmental well-being, technical robustness and safety, transparency, and accountability were the ethical issues less frequently discussed in the studies included in this scoping review. In contrast, ethical issues of technical robustness and safety, transparency, and accountability “are those for which technical fixes can be or have already been developed” and “implemented in terms of technical solutions” [ 12 , p. 103]. The recognition of issues related to technical robustness and safety expresses explicit admissions of expert ignorance, error, or lack of control, which opens space for politics of “optimization of algorithms” [ 114 , p. 17] while reinforcing “strategic ignorance” [ 114 , p. 89]. In the words of the sociologist Linsey McGoey, strategic ignorance refers to “any actions which mobilize, manufacture or exploit unknowns in a wider environment to avoid liability for earlier actions” [ 115 , p. 3].

According to the analysis of Jobin et al. [ 11 ] of the global landscape of existing ethics guidelines for AI, transparency comprising efforts to increase explainability, interpretability, or other acts of communication and disclosure is the most prevalent principle in the current literature. Transparency gains high relevance in ethics guidelines because this principle has become a pro-ethical condition “enabling or impairing other ethical practices or principles” [Turilli and Floridi 2009, [ 11 ], p. 14]. Our findings highlight transparency as a crucial ethical concern for explainability and disclosure. However, as emphasized by Ananny and Crawford [ 116 , p. 973], there are serious limitations to the transparency ideal in making black boxes visible (i.e., disclosing and explaining algorithms), since “being able to see a system is sometimes equated with being able to know how it works and governs it—a pattern that recurs in recent work about transparency and computational systems”. The emphasis on transparency mirrors Aradau and Blanke’s [ 114 ] observation that Big Tech firms are creating their version of transparency. They are prompting discussions about their data usage, whether it is for “explaining algorithms” or addressing bias and discrimination openly.

The framing of ethical issues related to accountability, as elucidated by the studies within this scoping review, manifests as a commitment to ethical conduct and the transparent allocation of responsibility and legal obligations in instances where the publics encounters algorithmic deficiencies, glitches, or other imperfections. Within this framework, accountability becomes intricately intertwined with the notion of distributed responsibility, as expounded upon in our examination of how the literature addresses challenges in privacy and data governance. Simultaneously, it converges with our discussion on optimizing algorithms concerning ethical concerns on technical robustness and safety by which AI systems are portrayed as fallible yet eternally evolving towards optimization. As astutely observed by Aradau and Blanke [ 114 , p. 171], “forms of accountability through error enact algorithmic systems as fallible but ultimately correctable and therefore always desirable. Errors become temporary malfunctions, while the future of algorithms is that of indefinite optimization”.

5 Conclusion

This scoping review of how publics' views on ethical challenges of AI are framed, articulated, and concretely operationalized in the research sector shows that ethical issues and publics formation are closely entangled with symbolic and social orders, including political and economic agendas and visions. While Steinhoff [ 6 ] highlights the subordinated nature of AI ethics within an innovation network, drawing on insights from diverse sources beyond Big Tech, we assert that this network is dynamically evolving towards greater hybridity and boundary fusion. In this regard, we extend Steinhoff's argument by emphasizing the imperative for a more nuanced understanding of how this network operates within diverse contexts. Specifically, within the research sector, it operates through a convergence of boundaries, engaging human and nonhuman entities and various disciplines and stakeholders. Concurrently, the advocacy for diversity and inclusivity, along with the acknowledgement of errors and flaws, serves to bolster technical expertise and reaffirm the establishment of order and legitimacy in alignment with the institutional norms underpinning responsible research practices.

Our analysis underscores the growing importance of involving the publics in AI knowledge creation and innovation, both to secure public endorsement and as a tool for risk prevention and conflict mitigation. We observe two distinct approaches: one engaging nonscientific audiences and the other involving professional groups and AI developers, emphasizing the need for inclusivity while safeguarding expert knowledge. Human-centred approaches are gaining prominence, emphasizing the distinction and blending of human and nonhuman entities and embedding fundamental rights in technological systems. Privacy and data governance emerge as the second most prevalent ethical concern, shifting expertise away from traditional regulatory experts to privacy engineers and risk assessors. The distribution of responsibility for privacy and data governance is a recurring theme, especially in cases of ethical conflicts with AI deployment. However, there is a notable imbalance in attention, with less focus on diversity, nondiscrimination, fairness, societal, and environmental well-being, compared to human-centric AI, privacy, and data governance being managed through technical fixes. Last, acknowledging technical robustness and safety, transparency, and accountability as foundational ethics principles reveals an openness to expert limitations, allowing room for the politics of algorithm optimization, framing AI systems as correctable and perpetually evolving.

Data availability

This manuscript has data included as electronic supplementary material. The dataset constructed by the authors, resulting from a search of publications on PubMed ® and Web of Science™, analysed in the current study, is not publicly available. But it can be available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

In this article, we will employ the term "publics" rather than the singular "public" to delineate our viewpoint concerning public participation in AI. Our option is meant to acknowledge that there are no uniform, monolithic viewpoints or interests. From our perspective, the term "publics" allows for a more nuanced understanding of the various groups, communities, and individuals who may have different attitudes, beliefs, and concerns regarding AI. This choice may differ from the terminology employed in the referenced literature.

The following examples are particularly illustrative of the multiplicity of organizations emphasizing the need for public participation in AI. The OECD Recommendations of the Council on AI specifically emphasizes the importance of empowering stakeholders considering essential their engagement to adoption of trustworthy [ 7 , p. 6]. The UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI emphasizes that public awareness and understanding of AI technologies should be promoted (recommendation 44) and it encourages governments and other stakeholders to involve the publics in AI decision-making processes (recommendation 47) [ 8 , p. 23]. The European Union (EU) White Paper on AI [ 9 , p. 259] outlines the EU’s approach to AI, including the need for public consultation and engagement. The Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI [ 10 , pp. 19, 239], developed by the High-Level Expert Group on AI (HLEG) appointed by the EC, emphasize the importance of public participation and consultation in the design, development, and deployment of AI systems.

“Responsible Innovation” (RI) and “Responsible Research and Innovation” (RRI) have emerged in parallel and are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing [ 27 , 28 ]. RRI is a policy-driven discourse that emerged from the EC in the early 2010s, while RI emerged largely from academic roots. For this paper, we will not consider the distinctive features of each discourse, but instead focus on the common features they share.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to Rafaela Granja (CECS, University of Minho) for her insightful support in an early stage of preparation of this manuscript, and to the AIDA research netwrok for the inspiring debates.

Open access funding provided by FCT|FCCN (b-on). Helena Machado and Susana Silva did not receive funding to assist in the preparation of this work. Laura Neiva received funding from FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under a PhD Research Studentships (ref.2020.04764.BD), and under the project UIDB/00736/2020 (base funding) and UIDP/00736/2020 (programmatic funding).

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Helena Machado

Department of Sociology and Centre for Research in Anthropology (CRIA), Institute for Social Sciences, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by HM, SS, and LN. The first draft of the manuscript was written by HM and SS. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Machado, H., Silva, S. & Neiva, L. Publics’ views on ethical challenges of artificial intelligence: a scoping review. AI Ethics (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-023-00387-1

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120 Literature Review Topics for Inspired Research
29 Jul 2021. A literature review is an account of the scholarly works published on a topic. It is different from an annotated bibliography - and far more interesting at that. Instead of being just a list of summaries, a literature review synthesizes the information from all available sources in an overall relationship to your guiding concept.
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Examples of literature reviews. Step 1 - Search for relevant literature. Step 2 - Evaluate and select sources. Step 3 - Identify themes, debates, and gaps. Step 4 - Outline your literature review's structure. Step 5 - Write your literature review.
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1 What are good business topics for a research paper? 2 Interesting business-related topics. 3 Business management topics. 4 Current topics in international business. 5 Business ethics topics. 6 Business intelligence topics. 7 Topics On Business Communication. 8 Other good business research topics.
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A literature review on a mature topic requires that the authors analyze and synthesize a large body of literature, in comparison to a review on a more novel field where only few studies exist. ... Fisch, C., Block, J. Six tips for your (systematic) literature review in business and management research. Manag Rev Q 68, 103-106 (2018). https ...
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Conduct a literature review to see what other researchers have discovered and how your research can add to the existing body of knowledge. Sort your ideas: After your preliminary research, take your ideas and sort them into categories. For instance, keep topics on business law separate from international business topics.
105 Literature Review Topics + How-to Guide [2024]
A literature review usually becomes chapter 1 in dissertations and theses, allowing to explore the current knowledge on the topic. It evaluates academic and professional articles, journal publications, books, and web-based resources. A literature review is an indispensable part of a research paper. It serves many purposes, some of which are not ...
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Here are ten great ideas for research topics in business management. Employee benefits and its effect on employee productivity. The intricacies of managing conflict in the work team. Start-ups: A look into the issues that occur during business start-ups. Excessive work: Business consequences.
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"A literature review is a description of the literature relevant to a particular field or topic. It gives an overview of what has been said, who the key writers are, what are the prevailing theories and hypotheses, what questions are being asked, and what methods and methodologies are appropriate and useful" (Emerald Insight).
How To Write A Literature Review (+ Free Template)
Step 1: Find the relevant literature. Naturally, the first step in the literature review journey is to hunt down the existing research that's relevant to your topic. While you probably already have a decent base of this from your research proposal, you need to expand on this substantially in the dissertation or thesis itself.. Essentially, you need to be looking for any existing literature ...
Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide
What kinds of literature reviews are written? Narrative review: The purpose of this type of review is to describe the current state of the research on a specific topic/research and to offer a critical analysis of the literature reviewed. Studies are grouped by research/theoretical categories, and themes and trends, strengths and weakness, and gaps are identified.
What is a Literature Review? How to Write It (with Examples)
A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing ...
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You can find example review articles to serve as a model and introduce you to important pieces of research. You can find review articles in a few ways: Search a database, such as Academic Search Complete, for "literature review" OR review AND your topic. E.g. "literature review" OR review AND "Civil War". Use the Annual Reviews database (below ...
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The articles in this special issue. Dabić et al. (Citation 2021) present an innovative way of reviewing literature that combines elements of bibliometric analysis with systematic literature review in their article, "Serial entrepreneurs: A review of literature and guidance for future research."This combined method allows the authors to shed light on research into serial entrepreneurship ...
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Steps to Creating a Literature Review. Step 1: Planning your search. Step 2: Selecting a database. Step 3: Conducting your search. Step 4: Evaluating your results. Step 5: Managing your references. A literature review is a systematic survey of the scholarly literature published on a given topic. Rather than providing a new research insight, a ...
Writing a literature review in Business and Economics
Welcome to the Business and Economics Literature Review guide. Use this guide to discover business and economics resources available to you through Mason Libraries, both in our libraries and online. Find resources for writing a literature review- Mason Libraries books, eBooks, and chapters. Also resources from other schools
How to Pick a Topic
Picking a Topic and Keywords to Research your Topic Whether you are writing a literature review as a standalone work or as part of a paper, choosing a topic is an important part of the process. If you haven't select a topic yet for your literature view or you feel that your topic is too broad, this page is for you!
Subject Guides: Literature Review Basics: Tutorials & Samples
Business Literature Review Example One. Sharing economy: A comprehensive literature review. Business Literature Review Example Two. Internet marketing: a content analysis of the research. Education Literature Review Sample One. Teachers' perception of STEM integration and education: a systematic literature review.
Literature review as a research methodology: An ...
Although rare, examples of this type of review can be identified in the business literature (e.g., Covington, 2000; Gross, 1998; Mazumdar, Raj, & Sinha, 2005). Most integrative literature reviews are intended to address mature topics or new, emerging topics. ... Conducting a literature review is hard work, so the topic must be one that is of ...
Innovation and international business: A systematic literature review
This study is the first to combine the scholarly research on both topics with the systematic literature review of academic literature of 28 years, following the PRISMA guidelines and flowchart.
Writing a Literature Review
A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis).The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays).
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Steps for Conducting a Lit Review; Finding "The Literature" Organizing/Writing; APA Style This link opens in a new window; Chicago: Notes Bibliography This link opens in a new window; MLA Style This link opens in a new window; Sample Literature Reviews. Sample Lit Reviews from Communication Arts; Have an exemplary literature review? Get Help!
Innovation and international business: A systematic literature review
The query used in this systematic literature review is as it follows: TS = ("Innovation" AND "International Business"). Consequently, TS = Topic; and the search terms "innovation" and "international business" were combined with the Boolean Operator "AND". Therefore, literature search was based on two simultaneous topics ...
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Literature Review 2.1. The Business Value of AI Resources and Capabilities. ... (Topic 3) and Cross-border business activities (Topic 6) to enable Customer base growth (Topic 4). These findings are in line with some of the key insights highlighted in our literature review—the multiple-stakeholder perspective on VPs and business growth.
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The Pulitzer Prize-winning author reflects on how literature shapes us and more. In his novel Trust, which won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize, Diaz offered four contrasting perspectives on early-20th ...
Publics' views on ethical challenges of artificial intelligence: a
This scoping review examines the research landscape about publics' views on the ethical challenges of AI. To elucidate how the concerns voiced by the publics are translated within the research domain, this study scrutinizes 64 publications sourced from PubMed® and Web of Science™. The central inquiry revolves around discerning the motivations, stakeholders, and ethical quandaries that ...

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