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Systematic Literature Review

Economics and Business Administration

"A systematic literature review is an independent scientific method that aims to identify and evaluate all relevant literature on a topic in order to derive exact conclusions for the research question. (cited and translated from webpages of TU Berlin – Die Bibliothek Wirtschaft & Management)

Systematic Literature Review involves searching for, appraise and synthesize all available literature on a specific research question based on pre-specified inclusion and exclusion criteria. It can be carried out as an independent scientific method and thus differs from a ‘traditional’ literature search for a term paper or thesis.

Comparison Traditional (narrative) literature search Systematic literature review
Research question / topic Topics are usually broadly defined; the aim of the research is to place one's own work in the existing scientific literature. The research question should be answered by research. All relevant literature is identified in an unbiased, transparent and reproducible manner.
Search Not complete: The focus on ‘snowballing’ usually based on the author's level of knowledge and bibliographies of other researchers. The aim is to find all published literature on the research question. The search process is documented precisely.
Selection Often unfounded selection / omission of publications Reasons for selecting and omitting publications are made clear and determined by the research question.
Quality check Publications are often not checked for quality and bias. Search results are analysed for quality and possible bias.

Different types of reviews: https://deakin.libguides.com/systematicreview

There are various search and documentation standards that can be used as a guide. All SLR instructions have the following five points in common:

1. Question(s)

How do I formulate my research question(s)?

2. Search tools

Which search tools can I use?

3. Search

Start the search:

4. Die Überprüfung

How can I check the results of my search?

5. The Documentation

How do I document my search and the results

Consultating service

We offer individual advice:

  • Briner, R. B. & Denyer, D. (2012): Systematic Review and Evidence Synthesis as a Practice and Scholarship Tool. In: Rousseau, D. M. (Hrsg.), The Oxford Handbook of Evidence Based Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press, S. 112-129
  • Clark, W. R., Clark, L. A., Rafo, D. M. & Williams Jr, R. I. (2021): Extending Fisch and Block’s (2018) tips for a systematic review in management and business literature. Management Review Quarterly, 71, S. 215–231. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-020-00184-8
  • Denyer, D. & Tranfield, D. (2010): Producing a Systematic Review. In: Buchanan, D.A. & Bryman, A. (Hrsg.): The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Research Methods. London: SAGE, S. 671-689
  • Fisch, C., & Block, J. (2018): Six tips for your (systematic) literature review in business and management research. Management Review Quarterly, 68, S. 103–106. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-018-0142-x
  • Hensel, P. G. (2021): Reproducibility and replicability crisis: how management compares to psychology and economics - a systematic review of literature. European Management Journal, 39, S. 577-594. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2021.01.002
  • Hiebl, M. R. W. (2021): Sample selection in systematic literature reviews of management research. Organizational Research Methods. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428120986851
  • Snyder, H. (2019): Literature review as a research methodology: an overview and guidelines. Journal of Business Research, 104(C), S. 333-339. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.07.03
  • Sutton, A. et al. (2019): Meeting the review family: exploring review types and associated information retrieval requirements. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 36 (3), S. 202–222. https://doi.org/10.1111/hir.12276
  • vom Brocke, J. et al. (2015): Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Challenges and Recommendations of Literature Search. Information Systems Research. Communications of the Association for Information Systems 37. https://doi.org/10.17705/1CAIS.03709
  • Zur Einbeziehung von „grauer Literatur“ in SLRs:
    Adams, R. J., Smart, P. & Huff, A. S. (2017): Shades of grey: guidelines for working with the grey literature in systematic reviews for management and organizational studies. International Journal of Management Reviews 4, 19, S. 432-454. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12102
  • Zum Snowballing:
    • Wohlin, C. (2014): Guidelines for snowballing in systematic literature studies and a replication in software engineering. Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering. EASE ’14: 18th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering, London: ACM, S. 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1145/2601248.2601268
  • Zur Suche nach Suchbegriffen:
    • Farooq, U. et al. (2023):An assessment of the quality of the search strategy: a case of bibliometric studies published in business and economics. Scientometrics, 128 (8), S. 4855–4874. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04765-8
    • Marcos-Pablos, S. and García-Peñalvo, F.J. (2018): Decision support tools for SLR search string construction. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality. New York, USA: Association for Computing Machinery (TEEM’18), S. 660–667. https://doi.org/10.1145/3284179.3284292
  • Zu Meta-Analysen:
    • Gechert, S. (2022): Reconsidering macroeconomic policy prescriptions with meta-analysis. Industrial and Corporate Change, 31 (2),S. 576–590. https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/dtac005
    • Irsova, Z. et al. (2023): Meta-analysis of social science research: A practitioner’s guide. Journal of Economic Surveys, 38(5), S. 1547–1566. https://doi.org/10.1111/joes.12595