Assistant Professor Jiawei Sophia Fu recently received the 2019 Gerald R. Miller Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award from the National Communication Association (NCA).

“I am honored and humbled to receive this award from the NCA. A very special thanks to my advisor Dr. Michelle Shumate and other committee members Dr. Noshir Contractor, Dr. Ned Smith, and Dr. Klaus Weber who guided me through this process. And an enormous salute to my mentors at Rutgers and all of this year’s award committee members who read and provided feedback to my research. This research would not have been possible without the funding support from the National Science Foundation, Northwestern University School of Communication, The Graduate School, and Buffet Institute for Global Studies," Fu said.

Given annually, the award recognizes new scholars who completed outstanding dissertations during the previous academic year. Fu was recognized for the dissertation, “Where Does Innovation Come From? Exploring the Dynamic Processes of Organizing and Managing Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation,” completed at Northwestern University. Funded by a National Science Foundation Decision, Risk, and Management Sciences dissertation research improvement grant, this dissertation was comprised of three studies, including qualitative interviews of 53 entrepreneurs in China, ethnographic observation and archival of analysis of online forums, as well as development and validation of a scale tested among over 600 U.S. social ventures. Using institutional theory and communicative constitution of organizations, the research’s central question is how social ventures (new nonprofit or business founded for the purpose of creating social good) navigate different institutional logics (macro-level tropes that shape how people in organizations should act) to create innovations.

“NCA’s annual awards honor communication scholars’ teaching, scholarship, and service,” NCA Executive Director Trevor Parry-Giles said. “Dr. Fu’s contributions to the communication discipline are noteworthy, and NCA is proud to recognize them with this award.”

Fu’s award will be presented on November 16 at the NCA 105th Annual Convention in Baltimore. For more information about NCA’s awards program, visit http://www.natcom.org/awards/.

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