MGMT 310A - Organizational Behavior and Management

For this project, you are required to use some scholarly articles to support your research and recommendations. Refer to your assignment for the exact requirement.

What's a scholarly article?

Scholarly articles are written by scholars and experts of their field. They are submitted to research journals where they undergo an extensive peer-review process prior to publication to ensure the information is valuable (or new), verifiable, ethical, and thoroughly researched. Review these infographics and tutorials to learn more:

Develop a search strategy

1. Break down your topic into the most important keywords. You will not likely use your company as a keyword - scholarly articles will discuss the OB issue and possible solutions as a whole, not as they pertain to your specific company.
2. Enter only these words (not a lengthy statement or question) into your search. Use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) when needed.
3. Evaluate your results and adjust your search as needed:
   • Type of source: Can you determine whether the results include scholarly articles? If not, adjust the filters.
     • Peer-reviewed / scholarly check box: If this exists, check the box and apply to your search results.
     • Source or publication type filter: Choose Journal from the list and apply to your results.
   • Relevance: Skim the titles and abstracts. Find the articles that relate to your topic the most. Identify new keywords in these titles and abstracts that could be worth adding to future searches to adjust the relevance of your results.
   • Publication dates: Are the articles current? Review the publication dates and use your judgment. If desired, you can adjust the publication date filter to narrow your results to a specific date range.
   • Quantity: 
     • Too many results? Are results not relevant enough? Add more keywords to your search or apply filters to narrow the results.
     • Not enough results? Adjust or remove the least important keywords and filters and try again.
4. Repeat this search process in different journal databases for even more results and options. Try the same keywords or new ones to find the right fit for each database.

Review these tutorials for more information on this process:

Start your search

You're ready to start! You can find articles in a couple different ways: by using databases that compile thousands of different sources (Google Scholar, Business Source Ultimate, etc.) or by searching within specific journals. Review the pros & cons of each of these methods below.

Option A: Search within databases that contain articles from multiple sources, including journals approved by your instructor.

• Pro: You will have more search results, providing greater variety when selecting articles relevant to your topic.

• Pro: Depending on the database, you'll be searching across more than one approved journal at a time, making the process more efficient.
• Con: The search results may not ALL be published with an approved journal, so you will need to verify the publication title for all articles you find.
• Con: Database searching requires more strategy, such as using filters to narrow your results to scholarly articles.

Option B: Search directly within the approved journals.

• Pro: When done correctly, your search results will only be from that specific journal, so you will know each article is approved to use.

• Pro: You can choose to browse specific issues of a journal (e.g., June/July 2023, March 2022) in lieu of searching the entire publication, making it easier to get a sense for trending topics at a glance.
• Con: Since you are only searching one journal at a time, your results will be limited. You'll want to use fewer search terms to capture more articles.
• Con: The process may take a little longer because you'll need to select other journals to repeat the process.

Realistically, you will do a bit of both, conducting several searches in different databases and/or journals. One strategy is to browse some journals to get a sense for the OB/MGMT topics and keywords, then conduct a database search to broaden your results. Later, you might dive back into some specific journals to add perspective or gather more keyword ideas and repeat the process.

However you conduct your search, it is a good practice to gather articles from a variety of authors and publications. This diversity increases the integrity of your research because your supporting evidence will not rely on just a single study or perspective.

As described above, some databases contain multiple approved journals. These are listed below each database link, along with tips on using the database when necessary. Keep in mind the pros and cons:

• Pro: You will have more search results, providing greater variety when selecting articles relevant to your topic.
• Pro: Depending on the database, you'll be searching across more than one approved journal at a time, making the process more efficient.
• Con: The search results may not ALL be published with an approved journal, so you will need to verify the publication title for all articles you find.
• Con: Database searching requires more strategy, such as using filters to narrow your results to scholarly articles.

Each link will take you to a landing page for full-text access to that specific journal. This page may be within a larger database (Business Source Ultimate) or a smaller platform specific to the publisher (Wiley Online).

• To simply browse, find the navigation menu for viewing Current Issue or recent issues. Click on an issue to view the table of contents and browse/download articles.
• To conduct a search, find the search box to "search within journal".
  • If you do not see one, try the database search box in the main menu or ribbon. Sometimes these main searches will toggle between searching the entire database and searching within a journal.

Remember the pros and cons:

• Pro: When done correctly, your search results will only be from that specific journal, so you will know each article is approved to use.
• Pro: You can choose to browse specific issues of a journal (e.g., June/July 2023, March 2022) in lieu of searching the entire publication, making it easier to get a sense for trending topics at a glance.
• Con: Since you are only searching one journal at a time, your results will be limited. You'll want to use fewer search terms to capture more articles.
• Con: The process may take a little longer because you'll need to select other journals to repeat the process.