On Your Mark, Ready, Search: A Framework for Structuring Literature Search Strategies in Information Systems

Researchers often face challenges already in the early stages of a literature review, and thus, struggle in getting started with the search and in organizing the process. This starting point is however of great relevance because design decisions such as in terms of corpus creation have impacts on the entire results of the review. By following the design science paradigm, we present the ‘Search Canvas’, a generic framework that aims at supporting the (creative) process of exploring, specifying, and visually representing a literature search strategy. In doing this, we contribute to the understanding of what components need to be considered when deriving a search strategy and provide an instrument that enables researchers to iteratively plan and communicate such strategies.