Shades of Grey: Guidelines for Working with the Grey Literature in Systematic Reviews for Management and Organizational Studies

Abstract

This paper suggests how the 'grey literature', the diverse and heterogeneous body of material that is made public outside, and not subject to, traditional academic peerreview processes, can be used to increase the relevance and impact of management and organization studies (MOS). The authors clarify the possibilities by reviewing 140 systematic reviews published in academic and practitioner outlets to answer the following three questions: (i) Why is grey literature excluded from/included in systematic reviews in MOS? (ii) What types of grey material have been included in systematic reviews since guidelines for practice were first established in this discipline? (iii) How is the grey literature treated currently to advance management and organization scholarship and knowledge? This investigation updates previous guidelines for more inclusive systematic reviews that respond to criticisms of current review practices and the needs of evidence-based management.

Reconciling Perspectives on Clusters: An Integrative Review and Research Agenda

“…Moreover, we did not study the 'gray literature' -the body of material outside the academic domain (Adams et al 2017). Although our review was extensive, we only systematically perused the literature published in top journals.…”

Psychological interventions used to reduce sports injuries: a systematic review of real-world effectiveness

“…There is debate over the appropriateness of including grey literature in systematic reviews, with some suggestions that unpublished studies may enhance the findings of systematic reviews 69. However, this recommendation is often due to publication bias where studies which demonstrate statistical significance and/or large effects are more likely to be published.…”

A scoping review

“…A search syntax (see table 1), inspired by , was applied in the databases PubMed/ MEDLINE, a biomedical and life science database, and PsycINFO, a behavioural science and mental health database. In order to ensure a comprehensive search, a search syntax was developed based on the three key concepts, (Adams, Smart, & Huff, 2017) Including non-peer-reviewed, grey literature in a scoping review provides a broader scope on the topic. Furthermore, it avoids bias in terms of overestimated results, which often occurs when grey literature is excluded from reviews (Adams et al, 2017;Mahood, Van Eerd, & Irvin, 2014;McAuley, Tugwell, & Moher, 2000).…”

“…Different scholars have described the importance of developing a quality assessment tool for reviewing grey literature systematically (Adams et al, 2017;GreyNet, 2016;Mahood et al, 2014). Such quality assessment tools usually aim to measure the reliability of documents such as the academic background of the authors.…”