Theorizing Through Literature Reviews

There are many misconceptions about how to write a good literature review. In their award-winning article Theorizing Through Literature Reviews: The Miner-Prospector Continuum, Breslin and Gatrell (2023) introduce the miner–prospector continuum to guide scholars on how best to craft literature reviews. They argue that scholars can choose from eight review strategies. At the miner end, authors (1) spot conceptual gaps, (2) organize and categorize literatures, (3) problematize the literature, or (4) identify and expose contradictions. These strategies build carefully on established scholarship, ensuring incremental improvements in understanding in a relatively well-defined field. Moving toward the prospector end, reviewers may (5) transfer theories across domains, (6) develop analogies and metaphors across domains, (7) blend and merge literatures across domains, and (8) set out new narratives and conceptualizations. Such prospecting is riskier but can spark imaginative leaps and open fresh directions for the discipline. All strategies on this continuum have value and can lead to better literature reviews in SCM research.

Breslin, D., & Gatrell, C. (2023). Theorizing Through Literature Reviews: The Miner-Prospector Continuum Organizational Research Methods, 26(1), 139–167. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428120943288