I recently passed my comprehensive exams (woohoo!). In my department, the exam consists of writing a substantial literature review, which usually has 50-150 pieces of literature, and an in-person presentation and discussion of the literature with a committee of three persons. On my committee, I had Bonnie Nardi, Melissa Mazmanian, and Matt Beckmann. I enjoyed having an anthropologist, an orgs theorist, and a political scientist all in one room. They provided very different but very insightful perspectives on my review and the future of my research.
My literature review was a combination of works in political science, sociology, information and computer science, and HCI. It was hard to situate my research into just one field, and I did my best to try to scope my review of literature in each field that pertained to my work.
I’ve attached my literature review for anyone that is interested in reading it: McDonald_Comps.pdf