Mary K Feeney, Ph.D.
mkfeeney@asu.edu
Full Professor
Arizona State University
Year of PhD: 2007
Country: United States (Arizona)
About Me:
Mary K. Feeney is Frank and June Sackton Chair and Professor in Public Affairs at the School of Public Affairs (SPA) at ASU. She previously served as the program director for Science of Science program at the US National Science Foundation. Feeney was the Editor in Chief for the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (2018-2023). She is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Her expertise is in areas of public and nonprofit management, technology use in government, mentoring, and science & technology policy.
Research Interests
Public Administration
Research Methods & Research Design
Public Management
Science Policy
Technology In Government
Bureaucracy
Public Policy
Nonprofit Management
Publications:
Journal Articles:
Health crises, climate change, and technological hazards pose serious managerial and equity challenges for local governments. To effectively navigate the uncertainties and complexity, municipalities are increasingly collaborating with one another and sharing data and information to improve decision‐making. While data sharing fosters effectiveness in responding to threats, it also entails risks. One major concern is that local government managers often lack the knowledge and technical skills required for safe and effective data sharing, exposing municipalities to cyberthreats. Drawing on data sharing and cybersecurity scholarship, we investigate whether increased data sharing among local governments makes cities more or less vulnerable to cyberincidents. We test our hypotheses using data from two national surveys of U.S. local government managers conducted in 2016 and 2018. Our findings contribute to the literature on technology and risk in government by informing both public managers and researchers about the potential threats associated with data sharing.
Our research centers on the role of city managers in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. We begin by asking: What was the experience of city managers during the COVID-19 pandemic? Drawing on interview data from 87 US city managers we identify four emergent themes: crisis management, organizational and leadership contexts, unintended outcomes, and administrative impacts. We then apply Comfort's (2007) four Cs—cognition, communication, coordination, and control—to the interview data. We find that cognition, communication, and coordination are critical to city managers experiences in crisis management and response. Control is largely related to organizational and leadership contexts and a key aspect in determining their reported success. We also find that city managers view unintended and administrative outcomes as a result of their crisis management process that reinforce their strategies. From our inductive analysis, we propose a Complex Disaster Response Framework of City Managers.
United States (US) immigration policies have increasingly focused on national security resulting in universities experiencing declines in international student applications, constraints on international scholar employment, and complications facilitating international research collaborations. The COVID-19 pandemic brought additional travel restrictions, embassy closures, and health and safety concerns that exacerbated these challenges. Science mobility is critical for science education, training, competitiveness, and innovation. Using a representative sample of US and foreign-born scientists in three STEM fields, we explore how recent visa and immigration policies have shaped research collaborations, work with students and postdoctoral scholars, and intentions to leave. We use descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and logistic regression and find academic scientists report disruptions from visa and immigration policies; negative impacts of immigration policies on US higher education; negative effects on recruitment and retention of international trainees; and increased intentions to leave the US driven by negative perceptions of immigration policy.
Job advertisements are a crucial first step in the recruitment process. Public sector organizations overwhelmingly rely on passive recruitment tactics such as written notices, listing formal rules and legal processes, and excessive application procedures. Little is known about the signals these formal rules and procedures send to potential applicants. This research uses a survey experiment to examine the effects of formalization and administrative burden in public sector job advertisements on individuals’ intention to apply for a job and the moderating role of public service motivation, person–organization fit, and person–job fit. The results indicate that formalization leads to lower application intentions. Administrative burdens such as compliance costs do not have a significant effect. These findings emphasize the negative signal of formalization in public sector job advertisements, which has the effect of making these jobs less desirable to potential applicants.
Governments around the world increasingly rely on social media to expand civic engagement. While these efforts are motivated by optimism that social media platforms have the potential to mobilize more diverse segments of the public, there is growing concern that the use of these tools by governments can reinforce existing power differentials and create new challenges for inclusion, accountability, and democracy. To understand the potential of social media to expand civic engagement, we call for greater integration of science and technology studies literature into public administration social media research. By drawing from the science and technology studies literature, public administration researchers can better assess the political and social inequalities embedded in social media tools and better inform practitioners on the use of social media to effectively engage the public.