Martha S. Feldman is the Johnson Chair for Civic Governance and Public Management from 2003 to 2023 and Distinguished Professor Emerita of Urban Planning and Public Policy, Management, Political Science, and Sociology in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University in 1983, an M.A. in Political Science from Stanford in 1980, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Washington in 1976. Feldman holds honorary doctorates in Economics from the University of St. Gallen School of Management in 2014 and from the Hanken School of Economics in 2019. Before joining UCI, she was on the faculty at the University of Michigan from 1983 to 2003, advancing from Assistant Professor of Political Science to Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, and serving as Associate Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy from 2001 to 2003. She also held joint appointments including Professor at the Paul Merage School of Business at UCI and courtesy professor in several departments. Feldman retired from UCI in 2023.

Her research specializes in organization theory and behavior, organizational routines and routine dynamics, stability and change in organizations, decision making and information processing, public management, and qualitative research methods. Key publications include books such as Order without Design: Information Production and Policymaking (1989), Strategies for Interpreting Qualitative Data (1995), and Gaining Access: A Practical and Theoretical Guide for Qualitative Researchers (2003). Notable articles are Reconceptualizing Organizational Routines as a Source of Flexibility and Change (Administrative Science Quarterly, 2003; awarded Administrative Science Quarterly’s 2009 Scholarly Contribution Award), Organizational Routines as a Unit of Analysis (Industrial and Corporate Change, 2005, with Brian T. Pentland), and Dynamics of Organizational Routines: A Generative Model (Journal of Management Studies, 2012). She served as Senior Editor for Organization Science from 2006 to 2018 and on editorial boards of Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Discoveries, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Science, Organization Studies, Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, and Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management. Awards include the Academy of Management Distinguished Scholar Award for the Organization and Management Theory Division (2015), Fellow of the Academy of Management (2015), Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher (top 1% worldwide, 2014), Keith G. Provan Award for Outstanding Contribution to Empirical Theory (Public and Nonprofit Division, 2016), and Academy of Management Practice Impact Scholarship Award (2011). She is an Honorary Member of the European Group for Organization Studies, and her work has had substantial impact in organization studies and public management.

Professional Email: feldmanm@uci.edu