Sharon Mastracci
Biographic Data
| ID | 4127757 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sharon Mastracci |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sharon |
| FAMILY NAME | Mastracci |
| SIGNATURE | MASTRACCI S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Utah |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1506-7585 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 165 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 28 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Killing for a living
This essay focuses on the public servants who animate biopolitics and the publicness of animal care and control through the example of workers whose jobs involve killing animals in government shelters. From the perspective of government, stray domestic animals are mostly nuisances that are killed, so killing becomes someone’s job. Government-operated and government-funded shelters are less able to claim “no-kill” status compared to private or non…
On the Roots of Epistemological Sexism and its Impact on Public Administration Scholarship and Praxis
Bureaucratic neutrality norms render emotions problematic in the workplace largely due to presumptions that emotions cloud reasoning. This article traces the origins of bureaucratic neutrality to 17th-century Cartesian mind/body dualism. However, in Descartes’s correspondence with contemporary philosopher Elisabeth of Bohemia, he retreats from strict dualism in reaction to her argument that emotions may actually inform decision making. Elisabeth’…
The protective effects of prior military service on burnout in criminal justice professions
The Role of Time in Post-Normal Knowledge Creation and Decision-Making in Public Administration
Scholars developing the concept of post-normal science have focused on high stakes and uncertainty to illustrate scientific inquiry and decision-making under post-normal conditions. While uncertainty and decision stakes are often challenges in any decision-making process, we argue that they are not the key factors that warrant the use of a post-normal approach, in which facts are ambiguous, values are in dispute, and stakes are high. In this pape…
Neutrality narratives, gender, and fear of cuckoldry in public administration
Administration draws its legitimacy from neutrality in cultural contexts where power relations are shaped by gendered norms. Neutrality bestows legitimacy where power is vested in the male generative force and is heritable. In the public sphere, neutrality renders administration nonthreatening to politicians and justifies administrators’ use of discretion despite their lack of democratic accountability and oversight. We examine historical and cul…
Epistemic racism and sexism in public administration and theory’s unfinished business
In this essay, we argue that orthodox theory—mainstream knowledge deemed legitimate and universal—in fact originates from a very specific time and place, from a very specific type of individual. The archetypical orthodox theorist is a White, Western European Christian man from the Enlightenment period. Epistemic silencing universalizes his views as “modern thought” without considering the actual narrowness of its origins. We define and discuss ep…
Replicating a study of women and men in state government administration 30 years later
Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine data from a 2016 replication of a 1986 study of upper-level administrators in government agencies in the US State of Utah. The unique cultural context of this state is used to challenge Hakim’s preference theory; specifically, that the individual agency of work-oriented women is stronger than structural constraints, including culture. This study joins others that have questioned the preference theor…
Improving victim engagement and officer response in rape investigations
High‐Stakes Administrative Discretion
Administrative discretion can range from benign to troubling, and law enforcement officers possess the power to use physical violence in the discharge of their duties. Body‐worn cameras (BWCs) are a workplace surveillance technology intended to monitor officer behavior in the field, but officers exercise discretion over whether or not to activate their cameras. So, what drives officers to activate BWCs? Combining unique survey and administrative …
Gender Equity
“Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less” was the motto of The Revolution, the newspaper published by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, leaders in the
The Palgrave Handbook of Global Perspectives on Emotional Labor in Public Service
It's not depersonalization, It's emotional labor
Making the Affective Turn
There is a thirst for meaning in theory, praxis, and citizenship that knowledge cannot quench. It is time for an affective turn in public administration scholarship, toward an appreciation for the pairing of cognition and emotion, rather than a reliance on cognition alone. For citizens to be engaged with government, they must care about it. It is not spreadsheets that cause people to love their country or hate it; it is feelings. Societal faultli…
That’s What the Money’s for”
As the face of government, street-level bureaucrats interact with the citizenry and engage in emotional labor. Here we argue that public servants risk becoming alienated due to the unsupported emotional labor demands of their jobs. Alienated public servants can, in turn, alienate citizens from their government via emotional contagion, and because targets of emotional labor can detect inauthentic surface acting, they will distrust encounters with …
Visibility is a Trap
The growing use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) in law enforcement poses ethical and privacy threats to be considered by policy makers. Law enforcement adoption of surveillance technology often outpaces the laws and regulations that would ensure their appropriate use, and the negative consequences are rarely anticipated, particularly as they relate to privacy concerns. To date, the BWC policy narrative in the United States frames the technology as a …
Beginning Nurses’ Perceptions of Ethical Leadership in the Shadow of Mid Staffs
Prior research has established the role of ethical leadership in promoting positive workplace outcomes. Nevertheless, in the wake of scandal, what is the perception of ethical leadership by new entrants into the scandalized profession? Can ethical leadership still promote positive behavior? Path analysis using survey data from 159 beginning nurses reveals the presence of ethical leadership after the worst tragedy in the history of England’s Natio…
Gendered Organizations
Despite the increasing number of women in the workforce, the norms surrounding division of labor in the domestic sphere and work/life balance have not changed. Structural theory predicts that balancing work and family demands will improve as the proportion of women reaches critical mass, because women will advocate on behalf of such changes. But work/life balance remains elusive. Gendered organizations theory predicts that norms and practices bas…
Emotional Labor and Crisis Response
The author's of the award-winning Emotional Labor now go inside the stressful world of suicide, rape, and domestic hotline workers, EMTs, triage nurses, and agency/deparment spokespersons, to provide powerful insights into how emotional labor is actually exerted by public servants who face the gravest challenges
Symposium introduction
Symposium Introduction
The Conspicuous Absence of Government in a Looney Tunes Economy
Who Are the Contingent Workers in Federal Government
To most, federal employment means stable work with good pay, good benefits, long-run job security, and opportunities for promotion from the mail room to upper management. The authors' debunk that notion. The authors' definitively establish the presence of a core/ring structure in federal employment. Core occupations are permanent full-time, year-round stable positions, whereas ring jobs are comparatively unstable work situations: temporary, part-…
Beyond Cognition
How do the concepts of emotional labor and artful affect translate into our understanding of leadership? Where would one find affective leadership in practice? To address these questions, the workdays of civil servants are examined. Based on interviews and focus groups, the authors set forth in their own words how social workers, 911 operators, corrections officials, detectives, and child guardians experience their work. These interviews reveal t…
Redistributive Policy
This paper tests predictions of redistributive policy theory. Lowi claims that redistributive policy is not influenced by economic conditions. Limited empirical evidence exists to confirm this prediction, and what little evidence exists is indefinite. Policy theory also suggests that such a policy need not produce actual outcomes, but rather, only possess the capacity to produce outcomes. Do policy outcomes or the capacity to redistribute vary ov…
Appraising Emotion Work
In an era when greater responsiveness is required of government workers, the authors test whether there is a blind spot in employee performance appraisals that prevents rewarding the most effective workers. Emotional labor—work that is relational and involves the manipulation and expression of emotions—is labor intensive and is required of many public service workers if they are to perform their jobs well. The authors hypothesize that rationality…
Gender and Emotional Labor in Public Organizations
Scholars of public organizations have begun to emphasize emotional labor in studies of gender in the workplace, finding that the skills women bring to organizations are often overlooked and undercompensated even though they play a vital role in the organization. Emotional labor is an individual’s effort to present emotions in a way that is desired by the organization. The authors hypothesize that employers with greater emotional labor expectation…
Beyond Cognition
How do the concepts of emotional labor and artful affect translate into our understanding of leadership? Where would one find affective leadership in practice? To address these questions, the workdays of civil servants are examined. Based on interviews and focus groups, the authors set forth in their own words how social workers, 911 operators, corrections officials, detectives, and child guardians experience their work. These interviews reveal t…
Appraising Emotion Work
In an era when greater responsiveness is required of government workers, the authors test whether there is a blind spot in employee performance appraisals that prevents rewarding the most effective workers. Emotional labor—work that is relational and involves the manipulation and expression of emotions—is labor intensive and is required of many public service workers if they are to perform their jobs well. The authors hypothesize that rationality…
High‐Stakes Administrative Discretion
Administrative discretion can range from benign to troubling, and law enforcement officers possess the power to use physical violence in the discharge of their duties. Body‐worn cameras (BWCs) are a workplace surveillance technology intended to monitor officer behavior in the field, but officers exercise discretion over whether or not to activate their cameras. So, what drives officers to activate BWCs? Combining unique survey and administrative …
Gendered Organizations
Despite the increasing number of women in the workforce, the norms surrounding division of labor in the domestic sphere and work/life balance have not changed. Structural theory predicts that balancing work and family demands will improve as the proportion of women reaches critical mass, because women will advocate on behalf of such changes. But work/life balance remains elusive. Gendered organizations theory predicts that norms and practices bas…
Visibility is a Trap
The growing use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) in law enforcement poses ethical and privacy threats to be considered by policy makers. Law enforcement adoption of surveillance technology often outpaces the laws and regulations that would ensure their appropriate use, and the negative consequences are rarely anticipated, particularly as they relate to privacy concerns. To date, the BWC policy narrative in the United States frames the technology as a …
Making the Affective Turn
There is a thirst for meaning in theory, praxis, and citizenship that knowledge cannot quench. It is time for an affective turn in public administration scholarship, toward an appreciation for the pairing of cognition and emotion, rather than a reliance on cognition alone. For citizens to be engaged with government, they must care about it. It is not spreadsheets that cause people to love their country or hate it; it is feelings. Societal faultli…
Who Are the Contingent Workers in Federal Government
To most, federal employment means stable work with good pay, good benefits, long-run job security, and opportunities for promotion from the mail room to upper management. The authors' debunk that notion. The authors' definitively establish the presence of a core/ring structure in federal employment. Core occupations are permanent full-time, year-round stable positions, whereas ring jobs are comparatively unstable work situations: temporary, part-…
Epistemic racism and sexism in public administration and theory’s unfinished business
In this essay, we argue that orthodox theory—mainstream knowledge deemed legitimate and universal—in fact originates from a very specific time and place, from a very specific type of individual. The archetypical orthodox theorist is a White, Western European Christian man from the Enlightenment period. Epistemic silencing universalizes his views as “modern thought” without considering the actual narrowness of its origins. We define and discuss ep…
Improving victim engagement and officer response in rape investigations
That’s What the Money’s for”
As the face of government, street-level bureaucrats interact with the citizenry and engage in emotional labor. Here we argue that public servants risk becoming alienated due to the unsupported emotional labor demands of their jobs. Alienated public servants can, in turn, alienate citizens from their government via emotional contagion, and because targets of emotional labor can detect inauthentic surface acting, they will distrust encounters with …
Employment and Training Alternatives for Non‐College Women
Employment and training programs aimed at women and men without 4‐year college degrees address the needs of the majority of the working population. Noncollege women tend to hold lower‐paying jobs with fewer opportunities for advancement, compared with the opportunities noncollege men have. One type of policy seeks to increase the numbers of women in occupations where men hold most of the positions, or “nontraditional occupations for women” (NTOs)…
It's not depersonalization, It's emotional labor
Beginning Nurses’ Perceptions of Ethical Leadership in the Shadow of Mid Staffs
Prior research has established the role of ethical leadership in promoting positive workplace outcomes. Nevertheless, in the wake of scandal, what is the perception of ethical leadership by new entrants into the scandalized profession? Can ethical leadership still promote positive behavior? Path analysis using survey data from 159 beginning nurses reveals the presence of ethical leadership after the worst tragedy in the history of England’s Natio…
The protective effects of prior military service on burnout in criminal justice professions
Employment and Training Alternatives for Non‐College Women
Employment and training programs aimed at women and men without 4‐year college degrees address the needs of the majority of the working population. Noncollege women tend to hold lower‐paying jobs with fewer opportunities for advancement, compared with the opportunities noncollege men have. One type of policy seeks to increase the numbers of women in occupations where men hold most of the positions, or “nontraditional occupations for women” (NTOs)…
Backstage and spotlight activism
Appraising Emotion Work
In an era when greater responsiveness is required of government workers, the authors test whether there is a blind spot in employee performance appraisals that prevents rewarding the most effective workers. Emotional labor—work that is relational and involves the manipulation and expression of emotions—is labor intensive and is required of many public service workers if they are to perform their jobs well. The authors hypothesize that rationality…
Gender and Emotional Labor in Public Organizations
Scholars of public organizations have begun to emphasize emotional labor in studies of gender in the workplace, finding that the skills women bring to organizations are often overlooked and undercompensated even though they play a vital role in the organization. Emotional labor is an individual’s effort to present emotions in a way that is desired by the organization. The authors hypothesize that employers with greater emotional labor expectation…
Redistributive Policy
This paper tests predictions of redistributive policy theory. Lowi claims that redistributive policy is not influenced by economic conditions. Limited empirical evidence exists to confirm this prediction, and what little evidence exists is indefinite. Policy theory also suggests that such a policy need not produce actual outcomes, but rather, only possess the capacity to produce outcomes. Do policy outcomes or the capacity to redistribute vary ov…
Who Are the Contingent Workers in Federal Government
To most, federal employment means stable work with good pay, good benefits, long-run job security, and opportunities for promotion from the mail room to upper management. The authors' debunk that notion. The authors' definitively establish the presence of a core/ring structure in federal employment. Core occupations are permanent full-time, year-round stable positions, whereas ring jobs are comparatively unstable work situations: temporary, part-…
Beyond Cognition
How do the concepts of emotional labor and artful affect translate into our understanding of leadership? Where would one find affective leadership in practice? To address these questions, the workdays of civil servants are examined. Based on interviews and focus groups, the authors set forth in their own words how social workers, 911 operators, corrections officials, detectives, and child guardians experience their work. These interviews reveal t…
The Conspicuous Absence of Government in a Looney Tunes Economy
Emotional Labor and Crisis Response
The author's of the award-winning Emotional Labor now go inside the stressful world of suicide, rape, and domestic hotline workers, EMTs, triage nurses, and agency/deparment spokespersons, to provide powerful insights into how emotional labor is actually exerted by public servants who face the gravest challenges
Symposium introduction
Symposium Introduction
Gendered Organizations
Despite the increasing number of women in the workforce, the norms surrounding division of labor in the domestic sphere and work/life balance have not changed. Structural theory predicts that balancing work and family demands will improve as the proportion of women reaches critical mass, because women will advocate on behalf of such changes. But work/life balance remains elusive. Gendered organizations theory predicts that norms and practices bas…
Visibility is a Trap
The growing use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) in law enforcement poses ethical and privacy threats to be considered by policy makers. Law enforcement adoption of surveillance technology often outpaces the laws and regulations that would ensure their appropriate use, and the negative consequences are rarely anticipated, particularly as they relate to privacy concerns. To date, the BWC policy narrative in the United States frames the technology as a …
Beginning Nurses’ Perceptions of Ethical Leadership in the Shadow of Mid Staffs
Prior research has established the role of ethical leadership in promoting positive workplace outcomes. Nevertheless, in the wake of scandal, what is the perception of ethical leadership by new entrants into the scandalized profession? Can ethical leadership still promote positive behavior? Path analysis using survey data from 159 beginning nurses reveals the presence of ethical leadership after the worst tragedy in the history of England’s Natio…
Making the Affective Turn
There is a thirst for meaning in theory, praxis, and citizenship that knowledge cannot quench. It is time for an affective turn in public administration scholarship, toward an appreciation for the pairing of cognition and emotion, rather than a reliance on cognition alone. For citizens to be engaged with government, they must care about it. It is not spreadsheets that cause people to love their country or hate it; it is feelings. Societal faultli…
That’s What the Money’s for”
As the face of government, street-level bureaucrats interact with the citizenry and engage in emotional labor. Here we argue that public servants risk becoming alienated due to the unsupported emotional labor demands of their jobs. Alienated public servants can, in turn, alienate citizens from their government via emotional contagion, and because targets of emotional labor can detect inauthentic surface acting, they will distrust encounters with …
The Palgrave Handbook of Global Perspectives on Emotional Labor in Public Service
It's not depersonalization, It's emotional labor
High‐Stakes Administrative Discretion
Administrative discretion can range from benign to troubling, and law enforcement officers possess the power to use physical violence in the discharge of their duties. Body‐worn cameras (BWCs) are a workplace surveillance technology intended to monitor officer behavior in the field, but officers exercise discretion over whether or not to activate their cameras. So, what drives officers to activate BWCs? Combining unique survey and administrative …
Gender Equity
“Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less” was the motto of The Revolution, the newspaper published by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, leaders in the
Replicating a study of women and men in state government administration 30 years later
Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine data from a 2016 replication of a 1986 study of upper-level administrators in government agencies in the US State of Utah. The unique cultural context of this state is used to challenge Hakim’s preference theory; specifically, that the individual agency of work-oriented women is stronger than structural constraints, including culture. This study joins others that have questioned the preference theor…
Improving victim engagement and officer response in rape investigations
Neutrality narratives, gender, and fear of cuckoldry in public administration
Administration draws its legitimacy from neutrality in cultural contexts where power relations are shaped by gendered norms. Neutrality bestows legitimacy where power is vested in the male generative force and is heritable. In the public sphere, neutrality renders administration nonthreatening to politicians and justifies administrators’ use of discretion despite their lack of democratic accountability and oversight. We examine historical and cul…
Epistemic racism and sexism in public administration and theory’s unfinished business
In this essay, we argue that orthodox theory—mainstream knowledge deemed legitimate and universal—in fact originates from a very specific time and place, from a very specific type of individual. The archetypical orthodox theorist is a White, Western European Christian man from the Enlightenment period. Epistemic silencing universalizes his views as “modern thought” without considering the actual narrowness of its origins. We define and discuss ep…
The Role of Time in Post-Normal Knowledge Creation and Decision-Making in Public Administration
Scholars developing the concept of post-normal science have focused on high stakes and uncertainty to illustrate scientific inquiry and decision-making under post-normal conditions. While uncertainty and decision stakes are often challenges in any decision-making process, we argue that they are not the key factors that warrant the use of a post-normal approach, in which facts are ambiguous, values are in dispute, and stakes are high. In this pape…
Political science (25 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Psychology (15 works) · Law (11 works) · Public relations (11 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Economics (10 works) · Business (9 works) · Social Psychology (8 works)