A key difference between a literature review and a systematic review is the importance of planning your search and developing a review protocol.
When undertaking a systematic review you will need to decide, before you begin your search, your review question and search strategy. A review protocol discusses your research problem and it is in your protocol you identify the research question, begin to formulate your search strategy and identify your criteria for what you are going to include in your review.
The first of three stages identified by Tranfield et al. (1993) is planning the review. The three phases of this stage are the identification of a need for a review, preparing a proposal for a review and the development of a review protocol. Their contention is that, for reviews in management, a protocol should contain a discussion of the research problem and its significance rather than produce a definitive research question. However, more recent guidance (Fischer and Block, 2018) recommends that authors carefully develop and clearly state their research question(s) in the introductory section. There are a number of frameworks have been developed to help formulate your question. These include:
| Framework | |
|---|---|
| PESTEL | Political, Economic, Social,Technological, Environmental and Legal Factors |
| SPICE | Setting, Population or Perspective, Intervention, Comparison, Evaluation |
| ECLIPSE [management and service related issues | Expectations, Client Group, Location, Impact, Professionals Involved, Service |
When you begin developing your search protocol you will need to carry out scoping searches of the literature. This allows you to identify the research problem and whether there have been systematic reviews already undertaken in your area of interest. Carrying out scoping searches will also allow you to identify key words to use in your search strategy.
For the inclusion and exclusion criteria you will need to consider the criteria that will determine whether a study will be included in your review. This criteria will need to be explicit. You could consider the following in developing your criteria:
