| Course | DOC 723 Doctoral Seminar II (DOC/723) |
|---|---|
| Week | 1 |
| Paper type | Doctoral literature search strategy |
| Length | about 1,160 words, 4 double-spaced pages plus title page and references |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | University of Phoenix |
| Program | DBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for DOC 723 Week 1
Finding What Matters: A Literature Search Strategy for Research on Customer Onboarding
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
DOC/723: Doctoral Seminar II
Week 1 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The learner, the company and the search results described are composites written for a model paper.
DOC 715 ended with a foundation for the composite Austin customer success director's dissertation at Hill Country Software, which asks whether proactive onboarding by customer success managers relates to twelve-month retention and feature adoption among small service businesses. The literature review must cover the research that bears on those questions. This paper plans how to find that research systematically and how to show readers that nothing important was missed.
Choosing a Review Approach
Snyder (2019) distinguished systematic reviews, which use explicit, reproducible methods to identify and appraise all relevant studies on a specific question; semi-systematic reviews, which map broader topics across research traditions; and integrative reviews, which critically synthesize literature to generate new perspectives. The dissertation's review must map three research areas that use different methods and vocabulary, so a semi-systematic approach fits best, with systematic procedures for searching and screening so the process is transparent.
Tranfield et al. (2003) adapted systematic review methods from medicine to management research, arguing for a planned, documented process with explicit search strategies and criteria, while acknowledging that management questions are often broader and evidence more varied than in clinical research. Their approach shapes the documentation plan.
Concept Areas
The research questions point to three areas:
Customer retention and churn in subscription and contractual businesses, including customer lifetime value.
Customer success, onboarding and early customer support, including service onboarding and customer education.
Technology adoption and continued use by small businesses.
Synonyms and Search Strings
Each area's key concepts and synonyms:
Retention: retention, churn, attrition, defection, cancellation, renewal, continuance.
Subscription: subscription, software as a service, SaaS, contractual, recurring.
Onboarding: onboarding, customer success, customer education, implementation support, account management, proactive service.
Small business: small business, SME, small firm, microenterprise, small and medium-sized enterprise.
Adoption: adoption, usage, continued use, continuance, feature use.
Example string for area two: (onboard* OR "customer success" OR "customer education" OR "implementation support") AND (retention OR churn OR renewal OR continuance) AND (subscription OR SaaS OR software OR "business-to-business").
Truncation, shown by the asterisk, captures onboarding, onboarded and onboard. Quotation marks keep phrases together.
Databases and Sources
Business Source Complete and ABI/INFORM cover management and marketing journals; the ACM and AIS electronic libraries cover information systems research on software adoption and continuance; Google Scholar is used for citation tracking, not primary searching. Practitioner sources, such as customer success industry reports, will be collected separately and labeled as practice evidence.
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
Set before searching:
Include: peer-reviewed empirical or conceptual articles and scholarly books, published 2000 or later, in English, addressing at least one concept area with relevance to business customers or software.
Include earlier works only if they are foundational and widely cited, such as original theory statements.
Exclude: consumer-only studies of non-subscription purchases, studies of employee onboarding, editorials and articles without methods.
Employee onboarding is a common false hit, since the term usually refers to new hires; the exclusion is stated explicitly.
The word onboarding returned hundreds of studies about new employees, which is why exclusion criteria must be written before the first search.
Pilot Search
A pilot search for area two in Business Source Complete returned 2,140 records. A sample of 100 showed that about 70 percent concerned employee onboarding. Adding NOT (employee* OR newcomer* OR "new hire*") reduced results to 610, of which a new sample of 100 showed about 40 percent relevant. The refined string will be used for all databases in area two.
Strings for the Other Areas
Area one: (churn OR attrition OR defection OR retention OR renewal) AND (subscription OR contractual OR SaaS OR "recurring revenue") AND (customer* OR client*). The pilot showed this string returns many telecommunications and banking studies, which are relevant for methods and theory of contractual churn and will be retained, but consumer-only retail loyalty studies will be excluded at screening.
Area three: ("small business*" OR SME* OR "small firm*" OR microenterprise*) AND (adopt* OR continu* OR usage) AND (software OR "information system*" OR technology). This area has a large established literature, so results will be limited to studies of adoption and continued use rather than intention to adopt, which is less relevant to customers who have already subscribed.
Why the Date Limit
Software sold by subscription became common in the mid-2000s, and customer success emerged as a named practice around 2010. Restricting most searches to 2000 onward focuses on research relevant to today's business models. Foundational theories, such as models of technology acceptance or continued use, will be included regardless of date if later studies build on them.
Estimating the Workload
Based on the pilot, the learner expects about 1,800 records across all areas after duplicates are removed, about 250 for full-text review and 60 to 90 studies in the final review. At roughly 150 titles and abstracts an hour, screening will take about twelve hours; full-text review, about forty. Those estimates fit within the course timeline with time left for synthesis.
Screening and Management
Results will be exported to reference management software, duplicates removed, titles and abstracts screened against criteria and full texts reviewed for remaining studies. Page et al. (2021) presented the PRISMA 2020 statement, whose flow diagram tracks how many records were found, how many were screened, how many were dropped and why and how many remained; although designed for systematic reviews, the flow diagram will document the semi-systematic process. A second reviewer, a classmate, will screen a random 10 percent of titles and abstracts, and disagreements will be discussed to refine criteria.
Updating the Search
A dissertation takes more than a year, and new studies will appear. The learner will rerun the saved searches every four months and again before the final defense, adding new eligible studies and noting the update dates in the log. Database alerts will flag new articles that match the strings in the meantime.
Gray Literature and Practice Evidence
Customer success is a field where practice runs ahead of scholarship. Industry surveys, vendor reports and conference talks contain useful descriptions of onboarding practices, but they lack peer review and may serve commercial interests. The review will use them to describe practice and to identify questions, not as evidence of effects, and will label them clearly wherever they appear.
Citation Tracking
For each of the most relevant studies, the learner will check its reference list and the later works that cite it, since key studies in emerging areas such as customer success may use varied terms that keyword searches miss.
Documentation
A search log will record the date, database, exact string, filters and number of results for every search, along with notes on refinements. The log will appear as an appendix, so the committee can check every search.
Conclusion
A semi-systematic review with systematic search procedures, three concept areas, synonym-rich strings, multiple databases, criteria set in advance, a refined pilot, documented screening and citation tracking will find the research the dissertation needs. Week 2 turns to evaluating the studies found.
References
Page, M. J., McKenzie, J. E., Bossuyt, P. M., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T. C., Mulrow, C. D., Shamseer, L., Tetzlaff, J. M., Akl, E. A., Brennan, S. E., Chou, R., Glanville, J., Grimshaw, J. M., Hróbjartsson, A., Lalu, M. M., Li, T., Loder, E. W., Mayo-Wilson, E., McDonald, S., . . . Moher, D. (2021). The PRISMA 2020 statement: An updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ, 372, n71. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n71
Snyder, H. (2019). Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines. Journal of Business Research, 104, 333-339. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.07.039
Tranfield, D., Denyer, D., & Smart, P. (2003). Towards a methodology for developing evidence-informed management knowledge by means of systematic review. British Journal of Management, 14(3), 207-222. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.00375
What the DOC 723 Week 1 instructions ask
The first DOC 723 assignment asks doctoral learners to plan their literature search. Learners usually define the scope of the review, identify key concepts and their synonyms, construct search strings using Boolean operators and truncation, select databases and other sources, set inclusion and exclusion criteria such as dates, publication types and populations, describe how results will be screened and managed and explain how the search will be documented for transparency. Some versions ask learners to run and report a pilot search or to compare results across two databases. Apply the plan to the learner's own dissertation topic, cite literature review methodology sources in APA and show how the strategy will find the studies most relevant to the research questions.
How this DOC 723 Week 1 example is built
Our model paper divides the review into three areas: customer retention and churn in subscription businesses, customer success and onboarding practices and technology adoption in small businesses. For each, it lists synonyms, such as churn, attrition, defection and retention, and builds strings with Boolean operators and truncation. Following an overview of literature review methods and a foundational approach to systematic reviews in management, it chooses business, information systems and marketing databases, adds citation tracking and sets criteria for peer-reviewed empirical and conceptual work from 2000 onward. A pilot search returns 2,140 records, too many, so strings are refined. Screening follows a widely used reporting flow, and a classmate double-screens a sample to test the criteria.
DOC 723 Week 1 grading rubric: where the points go
Doctoral graders reward search strategies that are systematic, transparent and tied to the research questions. Strong papers break the topic into concepts, list synonyms, build search strings with clear logic, justify databases and state inclusion and exclusion criteria. Credit goes to piloting the search and refining it, to planning citation tracking and to documentation that would let another researcher repeat the search. Graders also value a realistic screening plan, a second reviewer for part of the screening and a clear line between scholarly and practitioner sources. Literature review methodology sources cited in APA support a strong plan.
DOC 723 Week 1 help: mistakes to avoid
Search strategy papers often list a few keywords without synonyms or Boolean logic, which misses relevant studies. Map each concept and its alternatives. Another frequent gap is relying on one database or on general web search; use several scholarly databases suited to the field. Learners also set criteria after seeing results, which invites bias; set them first and record any later change. Some plans skip documentation, making the review impossible to reproduce. Record each search with date, database, string and results. Finally, plan citation tracking, since key studies often surface through references rather than keywords. Keep a log from the very first search. A tutor can help you build and test search strings.
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DOC 723 Week 1 questions, answered
What does DOC 723 Week 1 usually cover?
It usually covers planning a literature search: concepts and synonyms, Boolean search strings, databases, inclusion and exclusion criteria, screening and documentation.
Where can I find a free DOC 723 Week 1 sample paper?
The DOC 723 Week 1 search strategy for research on customer onboarding is above, free to read.
What are Boolean operators?
Words such as AND, OR and NOT that combine search terms, with OR broadening a search across synonyms and AND narrowing it across concepts.
What is citation tracking?
Following the references in key studies backward and the later works that cite them forward, to find relevant research keywords might miss.
Why document a literature search?
So readers can judge how complete the review is and another researcher could repeat the search.
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