Systematic Review - Network for Business Sustainability

Citation and hand searching
As we located the studies identified for inclusion,
we scanned their reference sections for the citations
of relevant articles. Similarly, we carried out forward
citation searches to identify additional relevant papers
that cited the studies identified for inclusion. This
approach is intended to identify a cluster of papers
that are related and therefore highly relevant. Citation
searching is not suitable for identifying recently
published papers because not enough time has passed
for these papers to have been cited. Because of this
gap, we also conducted a hand search of key journals.
The complete results for our different search
approaches are detailed in Table 7.
Table 7
SOURCE
NUMBER OF
RETURNS
SEARCHING THE GREY LITERATURE
Typically, reviewers are reluctant to include the grey
literature in systematic reviews. Increasingly, though, the
weight of opinion is changing, as inclusion of the grey
literature can have the following effects:
• Counter-balance publication bias (i.e. publications
that tend to promote positive findings) (Hopewell,
McDonald, Clarke & Egger, 2007)
• Address the problems of time lag (Conn, Valentine,
Cooper & Rantz, 2003)
• Provide more contemporary, relevant and
contextually important findings; the assurance that
all possibly relevant avenues were explored; and
support for “the wisdom of practice,” which may
not find support or be reflected in the scientific
evidence (Benzies, Premji, Harden & Serrett, 2006)
RETURNS FROM DIFFERENT SEARCH STRATEGIES OF THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE
NUMBER REMAINING AFTER
ELIMINATION BASED ON REVIEW OF
ABSTRACTS AND TITLES
ULTIMATELY
SELECTED
DOCUMENTS
Total electronic databases 4,047 308 83
Hand and citation search 142 17 17
Total scientific literature 4,189 325 100
Innovating for Sustainability 72