Following her first career as a practitioner, she continues a passion for community development through service learning and action research projects as a faculty member. Her research explores the role of public and nonprofit practitioners in achieving democratic social and economic justice with specific interests in administrative theory, public service leadership and ethics, and sustainable local governance and community development. She has a particularly strong interest in the ontological underpinnings of these issues, as shown in her books, Logics of Legitimacy: Three Traditions of Public Administration Praxis (Taylor & Francis) and Integrative Process: Follettian Thinking from Ontology to Administration (Process Century Press), with Jeannine M. Love.