Developing Scholastically Novel and Practically Relevant Theoretical Contributions with Literature Reviews

Authors of standalone literature reviews in information systems aim to develop scholarly knowledge and offer theoretical contributions, but beyond guidance for summarizing the literature, there is limited guidance on details for discovering insights for theoretical contributions that are scholastically novel and practically relevant to practitioners. In this article, we present guidelines for discovering novel and relevant theoretical insights from literature reviews, particularly using theoretical concept synthesis, and then presenting them with a structure that highlights these theoretical contributions. We consider perspectives on developing the value of scholarly articles in general and of literature reviews in particular. Then we delineate three kinds of value of the contributions of propositions and research questions in literature reviews according to if they summarize the literature, reconcile conflicts in the literature, or develop insights that depart from the literature. We also explain the value of theoretical concept synthesis with practical tips for discovering new theoretical insights.