Introduction to Systematic Literature Reviews as a Scientific Inquiry

While a literature review is part of any research project, including a PhD dissertation, systematic literature reviews have emerged as a form of scientific inquiry and a stand-alone research project. They encompass “a class of research inquiries that employ scientific methods to analyse and synthesize prior research to develop new knowledge for academia, practice and policy-making” (Kunisch et al., 2023, p. 5). Thus, systematic literature reviews can play a crucial role in advancing scientific knowledge and promoting progress in society.

This type of research spans a wide range of methods, including qualitative and quantitative approaches (meta-analysis and bibliometric analysis). These methods can help address a variety of research purposes aimed at generating new knowledge for the benefit of science and society. For example, Annual Reviews publishes literature reviews that “capture current understanding of a topic, including what is well supported and what is controversial; set the work in historical context; highlight the major questions that remain to be addressed and the likely course of research in upcoming years; and outline the practical applications and general significance of research to society” (www.annualreviews.org).

This PhD seminar exposes participants to the ‘world of possibilities’ in systematic literature reviews in various fields. The seminar enables PhD students to understand basic purposes and approaches of different types of systematic literature reviews and to apply them properly to their own individual research topics.  

Specifically, after completion of the PhD seminar, participants should be able to:

• Plan and conduct a systematic literature review as part of a research project (i.e. a form of scientific inquiry).
• Consider a wide range of purposes for conducting a systematic literature review (and making different knowledge contributions).
• Consider various approaches for search and selection as well as for analysis and synthesis.
• Discuss considerations for purpose-method fit as well as aspects of rigor and impact in line with systematic literature reviews.
• Present own methodology and discuss relevant methodological considerations related to their own literature review as part of a research project.

Participants also prepare a first draft of a literature review based on well-grounded review methods, which could be developed into a research paper for their PhD dissertation.

Successful completion of the PhD seminar is based on the following two requirements:

1. Session leadership (individual or group assignment): 50%
2. Research paper (individual assignment): 50%

Both parts must be passed to successfully to complete the seminar. 

1. Session leadership

Each person (or group) will act as a session leader for one session (i.e. one of the topic areas). The session leader is expected to act as an expert (a team) on the topic and facilitate class discussion. 

Each session has a duration of approx. 90 minutes. Participants should spend about 2/3 of their time on the method aspect and the remaining 1/3 on EITHER the critical analysis of the selected article OR on a practical exercise. The output should be a PowerPoint presentation as well as a two-page summary of the topic area (a Word document) OR an exercise.

Within each topic area, participants should elaborate on the following aspects in particular:

• Key ideas
• Alternatives and key considerations
• Practical suggestions
• Critical analysis of a selected article OR practical exercise (e.g. how to search, etc.)

2. Research paper

Each participant must submit a literature review research paper. Participants can choose a specific domain and review method. The purpose of this paper is to enable PhD students to carry out an initial systematic review in the context of their PhD dissertation topic and to develop their skills to conduct rigorous and impactful literature reviews as part of a stand-alone research project.

The research paper should address at least the following aspects:

1. Motivate a systematic literature review (review purpose and methods). This should be done in the introduction, which should briefly describe the domain, identify the research purpose and state what the participant plans to do to tackle the identified problem in the literature. Each of these issues should be addressed in one or a few short paragraphs.
2. Carry out an initial systematic literature review of the extant knowledge in the specific domain and other fields related to the issue. The review method should be clearly described.
3. Conduct the analysis for a subset of the literature (approx. 20-30 articles) and synthesise the initial insights from the systematic literature review (in a framework, model, typology, etc.).
4. Develop initial ideas for future research. This is optional.

Style guide: maximum five pages of text plus two pages of references (and graphs); single-spaced; 11 Times New Roman points.