THE AUTHOR

Hal G. Rainey is Alumni Foundation Distinguished Professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy, in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia. He conducts research on management in the public sector, with an emphasis on leadership, incentives, organizational change, organizational culture and performance, and the comparison of organization and management in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

The first edition of Understanding and Managing Public Organizations won the Best Book Award of the Public and Nonprofit Sectors Division of the Academy of Management in 1992. The book has been published in Chinese- and Russian-language editions.

In 1995, Rainey received the Charles H. Levine Award for Excellence in Research, Teaching, and Service, conferred jointly by the American Society for Public Administration and the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration. In 2003, he was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Rainey received the 2009 Dwight Waldo Award for excellence in scholarship in public administration across an extended career. In 2011, he received the John Gaus Award from the American Political Science Association and delivered the Gaus lecture at the annual meeting of the Association. The Gaus Award honors “the recipient’s lifetime of exemplary scholarship in the joint tradition of political science and public administration.” He has served as chair of the Public and Nonprofit Sectors Division of the Academy of Management and as chair of the Public Administration Section of the American Political Science Association. He received his B.A. degree (1968) in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his M.A. degree (1973) in psychology and Ph.D. degree (1977) in public administration from the Ohio State University.

Rainey has served on governmental commissions and task forces and in applied research and teaching roles at the three levels of government in the United States, and in service to governments in other nations. Before entering university teaching and research, Rainey served as an officer in the U.S. Navy and as a VISTA volunteer.