Trends in Asia Pacific Business and Management Research

Relevance and Use of Literature Reviews

Chris Rowley, Justin Paul, Chris Rowley, Justin Paul

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781000547931
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This book is based on the review of literature on different themes related to business and management in the Asia Pacific context.

All seven chapters included in this book explore the past, present and future of business and research. They cover diverse topics in the Asia Pacific context ranging from different ways of thinking to innovation implementation and efficiency, responsible tourism, internal marketing to leadership. This book will be useful for researchers, practitioners and policy makers.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Asia Pacific Business Review.

Introduction: Relevance, role and importance of literature reviews and original research in the Asia Pacific

Chris Rowley and Justin Paul

ABSTRACT

Here we discuss the role and importance of a literature review article in advancing a subject area. We outline the contributions we selected and their methodologies. It was found that framework-based reviews using a framework such as TCCM (Theory, Context, Characteristics, Methods) or ADO (Antecedents, Decisions and Outcome) are increasingly popular and can be more useful than other types of reviews, such as bibliometric or narrative, in some circumstances. The reviews also set out the theoretical and practical implications for business and management in the Asia Pacific as well as detailed future research agendas based on research gaps. Of course reviews themselves have their own limitations and biases, not least they are not original fieldwork or research and so are following well-worn, not new, paths. Yet, the importance and impact of ‘blue skies’ research should not be forgotten. Nevertheless, they do serve important purposes, including limiting the ‘reinvention of the wheel’ phenomenon while supporting future research work.

Introduction

From one particular viewpoint and perspective, knowledge advances when studies are carried out in a way that they build logically on the findings of prior studies (Kumar, Paul, and Unnithan 2020). Challenges in scholarship, such as some lack of novelty and poor understanding of theory, may emerge when we do not have a systematic understanding of the underlying body of knowledge. Consequently, in these situations systematic literature reviews allow researchers to identify gaps in the literature, critically evaluate and synthesize the extant literature in a more transparent, rigorous and replicable method (Snyder 2019; Paul and Criado 2020). Review studies can reconcile conflicting findings, identify research gaps and suggest exciting new directions for a given field of research with reference to methodology, theory, constructs and contexts for others to actually undertake (Canabal and White 2008; Hao et al. 2019). At the second decade point in the new millennium as the dynamic Asia Pacific economies continue to out-perform the West, it is appropriate to take stock of the field of its business and management research in such a literature review fashion.

This is not to propose that reviews are the only way to advance knowledge. After all they are not ‘original’ fieldwork or research per se and we only need to think about critical ‘blue skies’ research as here, logically, there cannot be prior studies to move along and add to in a linear, simple, small step fashion by reviewing the works of others. Then there is important work that emerges from cross-disciplinary and even inter-disciplinary research, again where the existing field is not only unclear, muddy and complex, but even no-existant. Then there is the research on the problems and issue that would occur as a result of the emergence of the so-called ‘unknown unknowns’ (Rowley 2021) in social science. This all requires the application of copious critical thinking and detailed, fine grain original fieldwork research.

Purpose

One of the purposes of this diverse collection is to provide ideas and directions for researchers to undertake novel work, instead of doing replete and recycled types of research. Also, challenges emerge when research does not link systematically to the underlying body of knowledge. Thus, it is important for researchers to have ‘state-of-the-art’ understanding of research gaps in the topical domain. High quality thematic reviews, bibliographic and meta-analyses can also help provide this contemporary understanding to scholars and thus play an important role in a discipline’s progress (Frank and Hatak 2014; Jones and Gatrell 2014; Palmatier, Houston, and Hulland 2018). In particular, the theory and methods of future business and management research studies could benefit from such insights that are revealed by systematic reviews. Hence, through this collection we aim to enhance understanding of aspects of Asia Pacific business and management studies and its underpinnings, to help drive more novel paradigms.

There are six reviews in this symposium. These cover both macro and micro levels, starting with ways of thinking that guide actions and moving onto to the practice level, covering innovation, tourism, marketing and leadership. Most of them use Theory, Context, Methodology (TCM) or Theory, Context, Characteristics and Methodology (TCCM) frameworks (Paul and Rosado-Serrano 2019; Aaltonen 2020) as well as making use of an alternative useful Antecedents, Decisions, Outcomes (ADO) framework as their methodology (Paul and Benito 2018).

Looking back to look forward

We start with a more macro and over-arching topic covering what is it that guides people’s actions. This involves ways of thinking. Here the study ‘Role of Zhong-Yong Thinking in Business and Management Research: A Review and Future Research Agenda’ is important. This is because Zhong-Yong thinking is often seen as an indigenous concept that best fits the Chinese context and guides people’s actions and decisions. Nevertheless, despite this, its influence on business and management remains somewhat unclear and less studied, with little understanding from both theoretical and practical viewpoints. Therefore, this work synthesizes articles (41) in a systematic review employing the TCM framework to evaluate research on the role of Zhong-Yong thinking in business and management. It also distinguishes between studies using Zhong-Yong thinking as a moderating variable and as an independent variable.

Next we move onto the important area of innovation, both its implementation and its efficiency. The implementation of an innovation landscape has transformed the emerging Asia Pacific economies in the past few decades with increased investment opportunities and multinational organizations. Therefore, ‘Innovation implementation in Asia-Pacific Countries: A Review and Research Agenda’ highlights the key studies and theories in this field. The ADO framework is used as a methodology to review the literature (1981 to 2019) in the innovation implementation area in the context of both emerging and developed Asia Pacific economies. This review identifies the key theories, methods, characteristics and contexts. It shows that innovation implementation in emerging Asia Pacific economies is underdeveloped and still growing. In the context of Asia Pacific emerging economies, the basic decision variables include adoption and day-to-day decision-making based on current challenges facing organizations. The study finds that the outcomes of innovation implementation in emerging Asia Pacific economies have not been widely investigated. Future research directions are provided in the context of emerging Asia Pacific economies. Practical implications are also discussed.

We continue to look at innovation in the next study included in this collection, but now from an efficiency perspective. Innovation efficiency has become a phenomenon of global interest. In this context ‘Innovation Efficiency: A Bibliometric Review and Future Research Agenda’ synthesizes innovation efficiency articles (165) and applies the data-driven text mining approach to map major streams of research and uses the TCM framework to identify widely used theories, contexts and methods. The literature on the evolution of innovation behaviours is classified using section titles – innovation, innovation efficiency and green innovation. By investigating definition evolution, research contents and determinants of innovation efficiency, this study also provides the main approaches for investigation: data envelopment analysis, stochastic frontier analysis and the Malquist index. This work highlights the need for interdisciplinary approaches to help better transcend academic boundaries and silos. Also, development and adoption of network interaction, regulation policy effects evaluation, time-varying investigation, multi-level methods and consideration of unexplored indicators for various contexts, are among the recommendations for future research.

We next move towards the more practice level area. These are key aspects of tourism marketing and leadership. Responsible tourism has been researched by focusing on various avenues of responsiveness. However, understanding of the antecedents and implications of this phenomenon remains limited. Therefore, ‘Responsible Tourism towards Sustainable Development: Literature Review and Research Agenda’ presents a systematic review by synthesizing relevant research published (since 2002). This work presents a better assimilation of theories, methodologies and emergent constructs explored in the literature focusing on various stakeholders. Additionally, the advancement of research on this area in the Asia Pacific region is emphasized. Ideas for future studies on responsible tourism and allied areas are provided.

We next move onto marketing, in particular internal marketing. This can be seen as a method of cultivating higher-level employee performance. However, the concept is marred with confusion due to the wide range of definitions and consequent implementation challenges. Therefore, ‘Internal Marketing: A Review and Future Research Agenda’ reviewed the relevant published literature (between 1980 and 2020) using a TCM framework. It found that not much attention has been paid to the utilization of an established framework for construct operationalization. Thus, the application of self-determination theory as a framework for operationalizing internal marketing is advocated.

Our focus next turns to the critical area of leadership, with its impacts on all of the above, viz, innovation, tourism, marketing and so much more. The ability of so-called servant leadership in transforming the learning experience for faculty and students encouraged the authors to study the role of the teacher as a servant leader in ‘Changing Patterns of the Teacher as a Servant Leader in Asia Pacific: A Review and Research Agenda’. Using the TCCM approach a systematic review of relevant studies outlines the noteworthy contributions. Research gaps are identified and a framework for a research agenda noted. Further, a comparative view between the Asia Pacific and the rest of the world is undertaken. This area holds immense potential for theoretical extension and development as many of its nuances are left unattended in prior research. Focussed insights offer signposts for taking this academic journey forward. Empirical testing of the influence of such leadership on students and faculty strengthens the clarity, design and measurement of the construct. Rigorous efforts in this direction will help servant leadership establish its unique identity, separate from transformational, authentic or ethical leadership.

Conclusion

Our overview had the aim of providing a broad brush overview of our content and main contours of the terrain we traverse. This indicates the importance and relevance of reviews and topics to theory and theory development and also business and management practice in reality. These are useful and worthy aims for both academia and the world of work.

Nevertheless, obviously while some systematic literature reviews are important as they serve a specific, narrow purpose, they are not an end in themselves. Original fieldwork and research should remain the ‘gold standard’ to push social science knowledge and solutions to problems forwards. This should not be overlooked, nor the fact that this sort of research requires the ‘hard graft’ of ‘hands on’ work in often uncertain, incomplete, partial, opaque and complex areas in the field. This is the case especially in comparative work and even more so in the vastly heterogenous Asia Pacific with its myriad mix and variety of influential cultures and institutions. So, while reviewing studies is an important endevour, such as a tool to help future research, it must be remembered and recognized that such works are often ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Introduction: Relevance, role and importance of literature reviews and original research in the Asia Pacific
• 2 The role of Zhong-Yong thinking in business and management research: a review and future research agenda
• 3 Innovation implementation in Asia-Pacific countries: a review and research agenda
• 4 Innovation efficiency: a bibliometric review and future research agenda
• 5 Responsible tourism towards sustainable development: literature review and research agenda
• 6 Internal marketing: a review and future research agenda
• 7 Changing patterns of the teacher as a servant leader in Asia Pacific: a review and research agenda
• Index