In this section of your manuscript, you need to explain to the reader why your research question cannot be answered satisfactorily by the current literature (if it could, then there would be no point in running your study, right?).

We suggest you to proceed in two steps:

• provide a literature synthesis on “what do we know” and “what do we not know” about your research question, and
• explain your contribution to the literature (“what specific knowledge do you add to the literature?")