Business Literature Search guide: Literature search

Peer-review (quality control) is used in the academic world to ensure the quality of the research production, e.g. a scientific article. Peer review is typically carried out by colleagues within the same research field prior to inclusion in a journal or similar.

You can limit your search to peer-reviewed articles in, for example, the Business Source Complete database.

Problem Statement: How does the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) impact leadership and the challenges faced by employees in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)?

The purpose of a block search is to conduct a comprehensive search that finds as many relevant documents on the topic as possible (see the video below).

1. First, you analyze your topic and identify its central concepts - each concept represents a block.
2. Next, you find terms that represent each block.
3. The terms within each block are combined using the OR operator.
4. Then, you combine the blocks using the AND operator.
5. Search 
6. Evaluate the search results and revise if necessary.

Source:Sådan søger du videnskabelig litteratur af Jeppe Nicolaisen, p. 153

Boolean operators

In a block search you will combine your keywords by using Boolean logic. Boolean logic consists of 3 operators, AND, OR, and NOT. 

The most often used operators are AND and OR. Combine your keywords with AND, when you want to narrow down your search result. 
If you combine with OR, then you will expand it. 

It is often the case that the databases automatically combines the entered words with AND.

Phrase search

Search for words that appear in a context or in a specific order with quotation marks around the words e.g. "artificial intelligence". Then you will only get results where the words are just next to each other. You can also use phrase searches when searching for a specific title, e.g. "The ugly duckling".

Truncation

A truncation is performed by placing an asterisk * as an exchange for e.g. an ending of a word. If you are searching for e.g. leader*, you will receive a search result with both leader, leaders and leadership.

PRISMA 2020 Statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) is a reporting tool for use when preparing systematic reviews and includes a checklist and a flowchart. It is designed with a focus on systematic reviews that assess the effectiveness of health-related interventions, but can be used for systematic reviews that assess other interventions.

• PRISMA 2020 Checklist includes 27 items that should be reported when preparing a systematic review. In general, the checklist serves to achieve transparency and improve reporting.
• PRISMA 2020 flowdiagram helps to graphically outline the information flow.

There is a number of extensions to PRISMA 2020 statement, including:

• PRISMA for Protocols, related to reporting in connection with the creation of protocols for systematic reviews
• PRISMA for Scoping Reviews, related to the reporting in connection with the creation of scoping reviews
• PRISMA for Searching, which includes 16 points that should be reported in connection with literature searches for systematic reviews

Below is one version of PRISMA Flow Chart, other versions are available