Creating High‐Impact Literature Reviews: An Argument for ‘Integrative Reviews’

• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Author: Kimberly D. Elsbach,Daan Knippenberg
• Date: 01 September 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12581

© 2020 Society for the Advancement of Management Studies and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Creating High-Impact Literature Reviews: An

Argument for ‘Integrative Reviews’

Kimberly D. Elsbacha and Daan van Knippenbergb

aUniversity of California; bDrexel University

ABSTRACT In this article, we argue that integrative literature reviews are among the most useful

vehicles for advancing knowledge and furthering research in a topic domain. Integrative

literature reviews are strongly anchored in a representative description of a field, but add new

insights via a critical analysis and synthesis of the field’s literature. Based on this definition, we

explicate the ways that scholars can (1) define the ‘space’ for an integrative review (i.e., how they

can justify and bound an integrative review), and (2) synthesize insights gained from the review

to develop a new perspective or point of view on the literature. We illustrate these points with

several of the most highly-cited manuscripts published in the Academy of Management Annals.

Finally, we close by arguing why these points make integrative reviews most useful for advancing

knowledge and furthering research in the area of management.

Keywords: critical analysis, integrative reviews, review papers, synthesis

INTRODUCTION

In management research we advance knowledge through programs of research in which

studies build on previous work and set the stage for future research. If we see manage-

ment research as focused on solving puzzles (i.e., answering research questions in the

field), individual studies provide pieces of the puzzle rather than solve the puzzle. Thus,

to get a sense of the state of the science in any domain of management research, we have

to look at the body of evidence in that domain rather than only at individual studies.

For that reason, there is value in integrative work to complement primary empiri-

cal research, including theory papers to provide guidance for programmatic research,

meta-analyses to quantitatively integrate the evidence in a field of research, and inte-

grative reviews that narratively integrate the evidence in a field of research to arrive at re-

view-driven new insight. Our concern here is with integrative reviews. This is not because

Journal of Man agement Studi es 57:6 September 2020

doi:10. 1111/j om s.1 25 81

Address for reprints: Kimberly D. Elsbach, Graduate School of Management, University of Calior nia,

Davis, 540 Alumni Lane, Davis, CA 95616 (kdelsbach@ucdavis.edu).