Feldman, Martha S. 1953- (Martha Sue Feldman)

PERSONAL:

Born March 31, 1953 in Oak Ridge, TN; daughter of Melvin J. and Nancy Ann Feldman; married Hobart Taylor III, October 30, 1993; children: Bruce Alexander Feldman Taylor. Education: University of Washington, B.A., 1976; Stanford University, M.A., 1980, Ph.D., 1983.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Policy Planning and Design, University of California, Irvine, 226G Social Ecology I, Irvine, CA 902697-7075. E-mail—feldmanm@uci.edu.

CAREER:

Writer, political scientist, public speaker, and educator. New York State Governor's Office of Employee Relations Level 1 Training and Development Program, member of faculty, 1989; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, assistant professor, 1983-89, associate professor, 1989-2001, professor of political science and public policy and associate dean, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, 2001-03, department of political science, associate chair, 1991-93; University of California, Irvine, professor of social ecology, political science and sociology, and Roger W. and Janice M. Johnson Chair in Civic Governance and Public Management, 2003—. Visiting scholar, Stanford University, Center for Organizations Research, 1990-91; visiting professor, Luigi Bocconi University, Milan, Italy, 1991, Swedish School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland, 1992, University of Bergen, Department of Administration and Organization Theory, Norway, 2002; international visiting fellow-advisor, Advanced Institute of Management Research, London, England, 2005—. U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, DC, regulatory impact analyst, 1980-81; University of Michigan, Institute of Public policy, assistant research scientist, 1983-89.

MEMBER:

Academy of Management, American Society for Public Administration, American Political Science Association, Public Management Research Association, Western Political Science Association, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Stanford University, Department of Political Science grant, 1977; National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) fellow, 1978-79; Brookings Institution research fellow, 1979-80; Rackham Faculty research grant, 1985; Patricia Jan Barrett Faculty Research Award, 1985; Ameritech postdoctoral fellow, Institute of Public Policy Studies, 1986; Class of '23 Distinguished Teaching Award, 1989; University of Michigan Excellence in Education Award, 1992; University of Michigan, Career Development Award for Women Faculty, 1995; University of Michigan, provost grant, 1998; University of Michigan State and Local Policy Center, research grant, 2001; ICOS small grant, 2002; University of California, Irvine, Center for the Study of Democracy grant, 2004, 2005-06.

WRITINGS:

(With W. Lance Bennett) Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom: Justice and Judgment in American Culture, Rutgers University Press (New Brunswick, NJ), 1981.

Order without Design: Information Production and Policy Making, Stanford University Press (Sanford, CA), 1989.

Strategies for Interpreting Qualitative Data, Sage Publications (Thousand Oaks, CA), 1995.

(With Jeannine Bell and Michele Tracy Berger) Gaining Access: A Practical and Theoretical Guide for Qualitative Researchers, AltaMira Press (Walnut Creek, CA), 2003.

Contributor to books, including Advances in Information Processing in Organizations, Volume 2, edited by Coulam and Smith, JAI Press (Greenwich, CT), 1985; Reframing Organizational Culture, edited by Frost et al, Sage (Newbury Park, CA), 1991; Researching the Presidency, edited by George C. Edwards III, John H. Kessel, and Bert A. Rockman, University of Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh, PA), 1992; The Legalistic Organization, edited by Sim B. Sitkin and R.J. Bies, Sage (Newbury Park, CA), 1994; and Positive Organizational Scholarship, edited by Kim S. Cameron, Jane E. Dutton, and Robert E. Quinn, Berrett-Koehler Publishers (San Francisco, CA), 2003.

Contributor to journals and periodicals, including Industrial and Corporate Change, Organization Science, Journal of Public Administration, Administrative Science Quarterly, Public Administration Review, Culture and Organization, Governance, International Journal of Public Management, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Information Infrastructure and Policy, and Office, Technology, and People. "Management Organizations and Society," series coeditor, 1995-2004; Organization Science, editor, 2006. Member of editorial board, Information Systems Research, 1990-2003, Organization Science, 2002, Meaning in Organizations Quarterly, 2003, Organization Studies, 2003—, Organizational Research Methods, 2005—, and International Journal of Public Management, 2005—.

SIDELIGHTS:

Martha S. Feldman is an author, political scientist, and educator. As an academic researcher, Feldman is interested in many facets of organizational science and the interaction between organizations and the people within them, noted a biographer on the University of California, Irvine School of Social Ecology Web site. She studies such topics as the ways in which organizations influence individuals' ability to accomplish work; the role of organizational routines in organizational adaptation and learning; and the tools and methods used by managers to create organizations that are widely inclusive of both employees and the general public. Feldman is also a scholar of qualitative methods, and she has developed techniques for qualitative analysis of context-dependent phenomena.

In Order without Design: Information Production and Policy Making, Feldman offers an in-depth analysis of the role and influence of policy analysts employed by government bureaucracies. Perhaps the most critical discovery made by Feldman is that most papers, reports, and other materials generated by these policy analysts will not be used for a variety of reasons, including untimely completion, low quality, or changes of personnel that render the original reason behind the report unknown or no longer relevant. Feldman notes that it is the ponderous, painstaking, and systematic process of creating policy analysis and related information that is its greatest hindrance. The system produces thoroughly in-depth data, but the information is difficult to apply directly to policy decision-making. Despite the Sisyphean nature of their work, policy analysts continue to generate their reams of reports and information, in the hope that their work will, even indirectly, have an influence on policy making.

Feldman offers detailed guidance on making sense of large amounts of qualitative data in Strategies for Interpreting Qualitative Data. She covers four important methods for analyzing and understanding qualitative information: ethnomethodology, semiotics, dramaturgical analysis, and deconstruction. Feldman explains these techniques in depth and provides practical suggestions for their use in an academic or analytical setting. She covers both strengths and weaknesses of each method, and explains when to use each technique. Each method is also illustrated with practical examples and clear explanations of procedure, highlighted by the application of each method to a single data set to demonstrate process and potential differences in results.

Gaining Access: A Practical and Theoretical Guide for Qualitative Researchers, written with Jeannine Bell and Michele Tracy Berger, provides useful advice for qualitative researchers whose professional work and scholarly interests mean they must gain access to field research settings. In addition to practical prescriptive advice, the authors also include real-life examples from actual research projects.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Political Science Review, March, 1991, Dennis J. Palumbo, review of Order without Design: Information Production and Policy Making, p. 284.

Choice, April, 1995, L. Heuser, review of Strategies for Interpreting Qualitative Data, p. 1381; December, 2003, C. Hendrickson, review of Gaining Access: A Practical and Theoretical Guide for Qualitative Researchers, p. 748.

Contemporary Sociology, January, 1991, John F. Padgett, review of Order without Design, p. 55.

International Journal of the Sociology of the Law, Geoff Mungham, review of Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom: Justice and Judgment in American Culture, p. 236.

Journal of Communication, spring, 1990, review of Order without Design, p. 191.

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, spring, 1983, Elizabeth F. Loftus, review of Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom, p. 315.

Journal of Legal Education, June, 1982, Jon R. Waltz, review of Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom, p. 301.

Michigan Law Review, March, 1983, review of Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom, p. 1009.

Public Administration Review, July-August, 1990, Sharon L. Caudle, review of Order without Design, p. 466.

Reference & Research Book News, August, 2003, review of Gaining Access, p. 82.

Social Forces, September, 1990, review of Order without Design, p. 344.

Society, January-February, 1984, Katherine S. Newman, review of Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom, p. 93.

ONLINE

University of California, Irvine, School of Social Ecology Web site,http://www.seweb.uci.edu/ (February 24, 2007), biography of Martha S. Feldman.