[2] McDonald's research primarily centers on social equity budgeting, fiscal health assessment in local governments, and the intellectual history of public administration.
[14] He assumed the role of President for the Research Triangle Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration from 2018 to 2020,[14] where he was also appointed treasurer on the Western Front Pilgrimages board of directors in 2022.
[15] Additionally, he served as the co-chair for the Budget & Finance Management Section at NASPAA and joined the Executive Council in 2022, taking on responsibilities at the COPRA Committee on HBCUs and MSIs.
Additionally, he has explored research areas such as social equity budgeting, measuring fiscal health in local governments, and investigating the intellectual history of the public administration field.
Filip Hrza, an academic reviewed this work and praised the book for offering a comprehensive explanation of the complexities inherent in analyzing municipal financial systems.
In 2021, he alongside Sean McCandless, argued for the inclusion of social equity considerations in budgeting education within Master of Public Administration programs to address inequities in resource allocation.
[27] McDonald has also explored the historical evolution of public administration education in the United States, tracing its origins and the modernization of teaching and academic programs.
He has conducted research into the current state of public administration education in the nation, including the types and focus of academic programs in the field.
[29] He has advocated for the significance of pedagogical research in public administration, emphasizing its direct impact on classroom teaching and its higher readership and citation rates compared to other subfields in the discipline.
[35] In his 2018 research work, he investigated P–O fit's role in turnover intention, proposing a mediation model influenced by employee followership and job satisfaction, based on Hobfoll's resource conservation theory.