webster & watson - How to write a LR - MISQ How To Write A Literature Review | Page 4

Webster & Watson/Guest Editorial

region. However, a comment we receive frequently from reviewers is that MISQ Review submissions focus
solely on North American or a small set of “top” publications. As one reviewer tellingly noted:
Studies of the IS literature have consistently been limited by drawing from a small
sample of journals. Even though the [ones] investigated here may have reputations as
our top journals, that does not excuse an author from investigating “all” published
articles in a field.…I just can’t see the justification for searching by journal instead of
searching by topic across all relevant journals.
We recommend a structured approach to determine the source material for the review:
(1) The major contributions are likely to be in the leading journals. It makes sense, therefore, to start with
them. While journal databases like ABI/Inform (ProQuest) accelerate identification of relevant articles,
scanning a journal’s table of contents is a useful way to pinpoint others not caught by your keyword
sieve. You should also examine selected conference proceedings, especially those with a reputation
for quality.
Because IS is an interdisciplinary field straddling other disciplines, you often must look not only within
the IS discipline when reviewing and developing theory but also outside the field. Malone and
Crowston (1994) provide an excellent example of reviewing literature in related areas like computer
science, economics, operations research, organization theory, and biology. Rob