Practical Tips

for
Systematic Literature Reviews
Matthias Breier, M.Sc.

1
Practical Tips for SLR
• Identify keywords and keystring

• Define databases

• Get access to articles

• Possible solution to synthesize results

• The future of SLR

2
Identify keywords and keystring
• Unstructured search for articles
• Search for existing SLRs and reviews
• Identify keywords and synonyms
• Google Scholar allowed in this step
• Use operators
• Try to find all articles you need and not more than necessary

3
Define databases
• Define databases you want to search
• EBSCO/Business Source Complete, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, ABI--
Inform/ProQuest, JSTOR
• Always more than one database
https://www.lut.fi/web/en/library
-> Searching for information -> LUT Primo -> Database search

Example:
Search for Database “Ebsco” -> Ebsco Business Source Complete

4
Do the Search
• Search the databases
• Download the results

• Search “Business model innovation”

• Download as .csv file

5
Get access to articles
• Download from database
• Download from Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/

• Download from ResearchGate

https://www.researchgate.net/

• Sci-Hub
Sci-Hub: https://sci-hub.st/
Where is Sci-Hub: https://sci-hub.41610.org/

• Contact Authors

6
Synthesize Results
• Use tables

• See example

7
Future of SLRs
• Artificial Intelligence supported SLR
• Major factor for subjectivity – Content analysis
• Solution: Topic Modelling as a solution to create a less biased SLR
• Strengths: More papers can be screened as computers support the analysis
• Weakness: No standardized algorithms and intransparent software

• As good example see: Kaminski & Hopp (2019)

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-019-00218-w