Reviewing literature through multidimensional representations

Abstract

Reviewing literature is a demanding task that calls for effective tools. After examining literature review (LR) practices, this paper develops an innovative approach in representing literature. In particular, the paper introduces depictions based on a three-dimensional structure that enables the generation of unitary and highly informative literature representations, thereby improving the completeness and reducing the mismatch between field complexity and the traditional figures and tables of LRs. The viability of the designed solution is shown by replicating a published LR on a representative topic of the accounting information systems (AIS), namely a literature review on enterprise resource planning systems in SMEs. Its benefits arise from comparing the literature representation developed here with the original figures. The paper has methodological and practical implications. Indeed, it proposes a structured approach to improve the representation of multifaceted literature, but it can also be suitable for other types of analysis. The efficiency and efficacy benefits that emerged from the evaluation activity make the output of the paper useful both for researchers and academic research users. In the light of developments in AIS research, the article also comments on potential applications in this area by examining some recently published LRs.