I am Lost, Where shall i start - Baby Steps for those beginning their Research Journey

Starting a master’s or PhD research journey often begins with a single problem: “I don’t know what to do.” The practical fix offered here is a step-by-step workflow that turns confusion into a buildable research plan—beginning with choosing the right interest, then narrowing to a topic, and finally grounding everything in what already exists in the literature.

The first move is to identify an area of interest—HR management, finance, marketing, supply chain management, project success, and other domains all count. From there, the process narrows to a topic of interest inside that area. In HRM, for example, topics can include leadership, corporate social responsibility, internal marketing, and knowledge management. Once the topic is set, the next task is to check what has already been done, what could be done next, and which theories have been used to explain similar relationships.

For “what’s available,” Google Scholar is presented as the easiest entry point. The key is not to read everything—hundreds of papers can appear for a single keyword—but to filter for recency (such as selecting papers from 2009 onward) to see current directions. From there, the strongest shortcut is to locate systematic reviews, which have become increasingly common in business and management research. A systematic review consolidates decades of work into one place, showing publication trends, the journals publishing most in the area, and the impact factors that help identify where to aim for publication.

Using servant leadership as an example, the systematic review approach yields several concrete research assets in one document: (1) how the concept has evolved through competing or complementary definitions, (2) the measures and scales used to operationalize servant leadership (including whether a scale is unidimensional or multidimensional), (3) where studies have been conducted and at what levels (including gaps such as limited multi-level studies and scarce qualitative research), and (4) a “nomological network” mapping antecedents, mediators, outcomes, and moderators. That network is treated as a blueprint for originality—if existing studies test certain mediators with certain outcomes, new research can shift to different mediators, outcomes, moderators, or even antecedents.

Systematic reviews also provide ready-made directions for future research, often in the form of proposed research questions. The guidance is to combine multiple questions where appropriate to build a coherent model, rather than copying a single question. They also reduce theory-hunting: instead of searching from scratch, researchers can identify which theories have already been used for similar variables.

If systematic reviews are unavailable, the alternative is to read the latest papers on the topic—ideally open access—then record findings in an organized way. The recommended minimum is to read and summarize roughly 15–20 papers, storing key details in an Excel sheet: why the study matters, what gaps it addresses, which theory it uses, contributions and limitations, variables, results, and even the scales or questionnaires. The final emphasis is on avoiding premature model-building. Early-career researchers are warned against proposing a framework after only a few papers, because they may not understand definitions, measurement, or theory well enough to operationalize the study correctly.

The workflow ends with writing and feedback: start writing only after literature review and concept clarity, get drafts reviewed by experts and peers, and treat critique as part of the process rather than a reason to quit. The overall message is that research direction comes from disciplined reading, structured note-taking, and expert consultation—not from rushing into a model before the concept is fully understood.