Chen Ji

Biography

Dr. Chen Ji is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Nonprofit Administration and Research (INAR). Her primary research focuses are nonprofit management and philanthropy. Her research encompasses various areas including social entrepreneurship, strategic management, and gender issues. It aims to understand strategic paradoxes in the context of sectors with blurring boundaries, with a strong focus on organizations’ sustainable development. Dr. Ji’s work employs a practical implication-driven approach. Her research covers a range of topics that offer actionable suggestions for the resource development and communication strategy of nonprofit organizations. These include nonprofit resource acquisition, signaling strategy, impact investing, as well as people’s perceptions of hybrid organizations.
She received the Emerging Scholar Award from the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action in 2023, and her work has been published in VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, and Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership. She received a Ph.D. in Philanthropic Studies from Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. She also holds an MA and a BA from Peking University. Before pursuing her Ph.D. degree, Dr. Ji worked in a think tank focusing on nonprofit capacity building and foundation strategic consulting in China.

Degrees

Research Interests

Nonprofit financial sustainability, social entrepreneurship, program evaluation, organizational theory/nonprofit theory

Selected Publications

Ji, C., & Konrath, S. (2023) “Penalty or reward: The role of hybrid identities in social enterprises’ resource acquisition,” VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations.

Shaker, G.G., Ho, M.-H., & Ji, C. (2023) “ ‘The interview inspired, shocked, and moved me’: Philanthropic informational interviews as a pandemic alternative to service-learning.” Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership.

Weber, P., & Ji, C. (2022). Social innovation in the heartland. In G. Witkowski (Eds.), Hoosier Philanthropy: Understanding the Past, Planning the Future. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Teaching Assignments

NPA 192 Introduction to Nonprofit Organizations
NPA 230 Nonprofit Ethics and Values
NPA 708 Nonprofit Administration Theory and Research
NPA 710 Nonprofit Human Resource and Administration