How to do gap analysis for business and management research from literature review

In-Brief

• The main reason for conducting gap analysis is to identify the problem statement and determine a research question that helps create an original project.
• Gap analysis is designed to look at recent happenings rather than waiting till the end of the project or activity to see what did not work. It helps to move forward.

Introduction

 Research gap is a research problem that has not been appropriately answered or not considered in the field of study. Writing a literature review for a research is a critical stage that is difficult to progress with. The main objective of writing a literature review is to identify the research gap, later that gap itself will become an essential aspect of your research. It is also considered the missing piece of research, and the area has not been evaluated or un-explored for a long time. Our team of experienced experts guides you in choosing suitable research journals to identify research gaps. You can also get help from literature review writing services uk to get the best literature review.

There are also tools and more complicated approaches which can save your research time and give you a better summary of the existing trends and areas of interests in your research field:

Thomson Reuters develop one such tool which is also called as “Essential Science Indicator”. Some of the research institutions have access to these websites; it helps identify the most cited paper in your research field, the new field of study, or areas emerging in that field. It also helps recognize the influential individuals, institutions, articles, publications, and countries related to that field.

“Google trends” is another platform that helps determine the popularity or interest towards a topic is increasing or decreasing. These tools are used to compare various issues and help identify the difference between them in popularity and scope. It also facilitates “regional interest” index, which shows the top’s popularity and how country it is popularly being used.

Another piece of data provided by Google Trends is “related searches” which offers questions similar to your research and the name of the authors who are active in the topic you have searched.

Read the blog: writing a literature review for a dissertation

Importance of gap analysis

The main reason for conducting gap analysis is to identify the problem statement and determine a research question that helps create an original project.

There are two general guidelines to conduct a gap analysis:

• Strategic — which covers the planning side of a business
• Operational — which guides the execution of the project or the way the organization need to function

It focuses on business like human resources, financial objectives, product development, sales, and IT. It is also called “gap assessment”.Here some of the reasons why gap analysis is essential.

• It shows your strengths and weaknesses in real-time
• It enables you to move resources in a smarter way
• It helps management make better decisions
• It provides an objective perspective to develop processes for the future

Analyze your current state

Before writing a literature review for a research paper , you need to understand the previous research work, which has been carried out in a particular research field. Gap analysis is designed to look at recent happenings rather than waiting till the end of the project or activity to see what did not work. It helps to move forward. It is not just summarising previous works or just talking about stocks of what was, It is about looking ahead to develop the future.

Identify Your Target and Goals

After deciding on the area, you need to carry out the research, and the next major step is to set up goals or targets. The goals must be realistic, achievable within a certain period. The goals must be aligned in a way to improve the business process.

Determine the Current State of Things

Before moving forward, you need to discover the current state of the field. In this step, you need to figure out your research area’s current state, about the recent technologies and methodologies being used. It can be done with reports or process documentation, journal article, conference papers, doing interviews, brainstorming, etc. It can gather data as much as possible to clarify how they are performing at present.

Find the gap and evaluate solutions

After you gained knowledge about the attributes, methodologies of the current state and deciding on the future state, it is easier to recognize the things that hinder you from reaching your goals. After identifying these gaps, come up with an idea you need to take to close them.

Implement a plan to bridge the gap

The literature review helps analyze the current state, the type of Methodologies currently being used in a particular research field. It helps identify the problem statement and research question. Which helps the researcher build a plan, and also they can modify the current methodology so that they can achieve the result they desire.

Conclusion

A gap analysis sheds focus on the current use of sources and shows how insufficient information can hold back your research work, which helps meet the performance goal and implement changes to close the gap. Writing a literature review for a research project is a long and complicated process. If you found any difficulty with the writing part, you can get help from online literature review service providers.

Reference

1. Økland, A. (2015). Gap analysis for incorporating sustainability in project management. Procedia Computer Science, 64, 103-109.
2. Langhammer, P. F., Bakarr, M. I., Bennun, L., & Brooks, T. M. (2007). Identification and gap analysis of key biodiversity areas: targets for comprehensive protected area systems (No. 15). IUCN.