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Meta-synthesis of the research evidence adds value to the process of literature reviewing, providing useful knowledge for researchers, practitioners and policymakers. The aim of the chapter is to explain what meta-synthesis involves and how it illuminates our understanding of concepts. Previous papers on meta-synthesis (by the author) have reviewed research strategies in information behaviour research and methods for meta-synthesis, discussed application of meta-synthesis to research on information behaviour of women, and proposed methods suitable for integrating information literacy research. Meta-synthesis methods have been applied to many areas of social science research. The literature review examines how to reduce the risks involved in suitable for integrating qualitative research or qualitative and quantitative research; outlines the main approaches used in meta-synthesis before explaining the processes used in a meta-synthesis of research on information behaviour of women, reflects on the meta-synthesis methods used, and which might have been used, and shows what meta-synthesis achieves. Meta-synthesis should be used more in information behaviour research, but it is a rigorous process, requiring time and effort to get useful results. On the other hand, meta-synthesis provides more new knowledge, and a deeper understanding of our ideas, than a conventional literature review.

In recent years, there has been an extraordinary accumulation of qualitative research in special education. However, as yet, there has been little accumulation of the understandings gained from these studies. This omission has important implications for knowledge development, the utilization of findings in practice, and providing implications for policy. In this chapter, we review and discuss perspectives and procedures from other fields with respect to aggregation of qualitative data. Additionally, we propose a specific method for the meta-synthesis of qualitative research in the area of special education. This synthesis would not be a numerical compilation of outcomes, as in traditional meta-analysis, but would treat individual research reports as “informants,” and employ procedures, such as analytic induction and the constant comparative method to develop higher understandings across individual cases. Such efforts are thought to be essential to reaching higher analytic goals and also to enhancing the generalizability of qualitative research. It is argued that meta-synthesis efforts could do much to promote the impact of the shared understandings gained from individual qualitative research efforts.

The purpose of this paper is to synthesize a body of research addressing changes in academic identity brought on by neo-liberal university management while proposing a new interpretation based on the institutional work theory and a relational approach to agency.

The authors analyzed 19 qualitative empirical studies regarding the impact of new public management policies on academic identity within universities from different countries to support a qualitative meta-synthesis.

The meta-synthesis established a classification of work identity and self-identity that reflects variable but globally difficult experiences with the universities’ neo-liberal management. The results also indicate that, paradoxically, academics contribute to the perpetuation of managerialism through protection strategies and institutional maintenance work while acknowledging their painful effects on their identity. Despite the control and monitoring measures put in place by university administrations, academics have assumed a pragmatic approach to identity by using the prevailing spaces of autonomy and engaging in constant self-questioning. Those involved could make better use of these free spaces by adopting projective agency, that is by expanding the areas of support, collaboration and creativity that, by their own admission, make up the academic profession.

This meta-synthesis sheds light on the limits of current academic identity research while advancing studies conducted on institutional work, primarily by highlighting the type of agency used by actors during institutional change; at a practical level, this research promotes discussion on the manner in which academics could use their agency and reflexive skills by pushing their institutional work surrounding identity recreation further.

The purpose of this study is to develop an in-depth understanding of the overall process of facilitating co-creation of e-government services, focusing on the government's role in fostering citizen engagement.

This study conducted a meta-synthesis of qualitative case studies encompassing analyses on a case-specific level followed by syntheses on a cross-study level.

Through meta-synthesis, the study developed an integrated framework, the process theory view of enabling co-creation of e-government services, illustrating how co-creation could be initiated and facilitated by the government.

By providing critical insights into co-creation steps, the process theory view offers a holistic theoretical understanding of enabling co-creation by identifying factors driving and motivating governments to initiate co-creation activities, interpreting the prerequisites for co-creation and the importance of impact assessment.

This study offers important implications for public authorities, administrators and policymakers by helping them enhance their knowledge base on the co-creation process to facilitate a higher level of collaboration between citizens and government for effective and efficient public service delivery through e-government.

While it is widely acknowledged that citizen engagement is crucial for improving and transforming the development and delivery of e-government services, it is equally recognized as a challenging and complex task. Through a meta-synthesis of qualitative case studies, this study is one of the first to develop a process theory view for offering a holistic understanding and crucial insights for addressing the concerns over the co-creation of e-government services.

To gain an in-depth understanding and provide direction to governments on their quality measurement practices related to open government data (OGD), this paper aims to develop a common frame of reference for quality assessment of OGD.

Qualitative meta-synthesis was used to synthesize previous studies on the quality measurement of OGD. This paper applies a meta-synthesis approach to integrate 10 qualitative studies into a common frame of reference for quality assessment of OGD.

Based on a seven-step meta-synthesis, the paper proposes a common frame of reference for quality assessment of OGD, which includes six indicators, namely, accuracy, accessibility, completeness, timeliness, consistency and understandability.

A common frame of reference for quality assessment of OGD will help researchers better understand the quality assessment of OGD and government agencies to improve the quality of OGD that they publish.

The purpose of this study was to explore the clinical readiness of simulation-based education (SBE) in preparing nursing and midwifery students for clinical practice in sub-Saharan Africa. This study has synthesised the findings from existing research studies and provides an overview of the current state of SBE in nursing and midwifery programs in the region.

A qualitative meta-synthesis of previous studies was conducted using the following steps: developing a review question, developing and a search strategy, extracting and meta-synthesis of the themes from the literature and meta-synthesis of themes. Five databases were searched for from existing English literature (PubMed, Cumulative Index for Nursing and Allied Health Professional Literature [CINAHL], PsycINFO, EMBASE and ScienceDirect Medline, CINAHL and Science Direct), including grey literature on the subject. Eight qualitative studies conducted in sub-Saharan Africa between 2014 and 2022 were included. Hawker et al.'s framework was used to assess quality.

The following themes emerged from the literature. Theme 1: Improved skills and competencies through realism and repetition. Theme 2: Improved skills and competencies through realism and repetition. Theme 3: Improved learning through debriefing and reflection. Theme 4: Constraints of simulation as a pedagogical teaching strategy.

The qualitative meta-synthesis intended to cover articles from 2012 to 2022. Between 2012 and 2013, the authors could not identify purely qualitative studies from sub-Saharan Africa. The studies identified were either mixed methods or purely quantitative. This constitutes a study limitation.

Findings emphasise educator training in SBE. Comprehensive multidisciplinary training, complemented by expertise and planned debriefing sessions, serves as a catalyst for fostering reflective learning. Well-equipped simulation infrastructure is essential in preparing students for their professional competencies for optimal patient outcomes. Additional research is imperative to improve the implementation of SBE in sub-Saharan Africa.

The originality and value of SBE in nursing and midwifery programs in sub-Saharan Africa lie in its contextual relevance, adaptation to resource constraints, innovative teaching methodologies, provision of a safe learning environment, promotion of interprofessional collaboration and potential for research and evidence generation. These factors contribute to advancing nursing and midwifery education and improving healthcare outcomes in the region. This study fills this gap in the literature.

The growing interest in e‐government raises the question of stages in e‐government development. A few stage models for e‐government have been proposed. Without a common e‐government stage model, different research in e‐government may be based on different stage models. This presents a difficulty in comparing and understanding different research results. In this research, we synthesize the existing e‐government stage models so that there is a common frame of reference for researchers and practitioners in the area.

This research utilizes a qualitative meta‐synthesis methodology to synthesize different e‐government stage models. The meta‐synthesis follows the steps used in meta‐ethnography.

Five different e‐government stage models were used in this research. We translated the stages within different models into one another and developed a new e‐government stage model. The new e‐government stage model has the following five stages: web presence, interaction, transaction, transformation, and e‐democracy.

The paper contributes to e‐government theory development. The new five‐stage model provides a synthesized conceptual framework for researchers to evaluate and understand e‐government development.

The synthesized e‐government stage model presents a road map for practitioners to follow in their e‐government projects.

The research uses an innovative and new research methodology to synthesize the existing research. It is one of the first research in the information systems area to make use of meta‐synthesis approach to consolidate the existing qualitative research. This paper is also one of the one papers to systematically come up with an e‐government stage model.

The importance of innovation has drastically increased across diverse academic and industrial fields. Innovation has been considered an outcome of intellectual capital management. The role of innovative literacy in intellectual capital management needs to be understood. Employees at all levels of the organisation carry out managerial and/or technical innovation activities by integrating their knowledge (with other members, including researchers and developers) and innovative attitude in line with the organisational goals. This study focuses on the methodological approaches to intellectual capital components at a conceptual level, based on the framework of innovative literacy, which is not prominent in the literature.

A meta-synthesis analysis was conducted, examining published articles from 1990 to 2016 based on selected keywords. The meta-synthesis analysis explored the concept of innovation literacy by revealing some of the relationships involved in intellectual capital performance.

The findings point to gaps and methodological weaknesses in innovative literacy research and provide insights for future research.

While the findings of this study are useful, there are some limitations and recommendations for future research: One limitation of this study arises from the selection of the articles used in meta-synthesis analyses; these were published during the period 1990–2016. An expansion of the article selection to include articles published before 1990 can be useful to better understand the vision on innovation and intellectual capital. This research fills a conceptual gap in the literature. However, since this concept is evaluated using the human, customer and structural components of intellectual capital, researchers in the future can evaluate this concept with other components of intellectual capital. Finally, this research does not present a hypothesis on the relationship between innovative literacy and intellectual capital.

This study provides a novel conceptual view of integrating theories for ensuring sustainability of intellectual management and innovative literacy by synthesising findings from academic studies.

The paper aims to foster a better understanding of knowledge management (KM) benefits by integrating the qualitative findings of prior research under a multilayer conceptual framework.

A meta-synthesis approach was conducted by adopting “Noblit and Hare’s” seven-step method.

A breakdown structure for KM benefits which encompasses 3 “macro benefits” at Level 1, 7 “benefits” at Level 2 and 44 “micro benefits” at Level 3.

The main limitation is that this research does not provide criteria and measures to assess the benefits of KM.

Organizations which intend to invest in KM can obtain a better insight about outcomes and benefits of implementing KM initiatives. This study will provide those organizations which have already invested in KM with some ideas to evaluate their KM efforts qualitatively.

Based on available data, this study is the first of its kind that has identified the benefits of KM in three layers. Also, the number of KM benefits identified in this study is greater than that of any previous research.

Using the systematic search and coding procedures of a meta-synthesis, this paper reviews the extant literature on English language learners (ELLs) in the social studies classroom. The 15 studies making up the corpus adhere to both topical and methodological criteria. The Language-Content-Task (LCT) Framework informed the coding and analysis of the results. Discussion of the findings provides three primary implications: (1) the need for linguistically and culturally responsive instruction for ELLs in social studies classes, (2) the need for increased training for inservice and preservice social studies teachers in preparation for teaching ELLs, and (3) the need for future research among ELLs in the social studies context.