Prof. CHANDRA Yanto (蔡振榮)

• Social entrepreneurship and innovation
• Public sector innovation
• Technological governance
• Digital governance
• AI governance and ethics

Yanto Chandra is an Associate Professor at the City University of Hong Kong's Department of Public and International Affairs, where he co-directs the Technology, Policy, and Law Lab. He is also a core member of the Laboratory for Public Management and Policy.

Chandra's research focuses on entrepreneurship, innovation, and strategy in creating public value across the public and social sectors. His research also examines how innovation occurs in the public sector and the impact of new technologies on policy and society, and how to better govern them. His projects in recent years have examined how artificial intelligence, particularly large language models (LLMs), and blockchain, are applied to initiatives and organizations aiming to create broader public value and impact, including different types of social enterprises, non-profits, and public services.  

His research has been published in leading public administration and policy journals such as Public Management Review, Public Administration Review, American Review of Public Administration, International Public Management Journal, Policy & Internet, Journal of Social Policy, and World Development. His research also appears in leading business journals, including the Financial Times (FT) 50 / UTD journals such as the Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, and Journal of Business Ethics. He was also one of the first scholars to publish comics (here too) that brought across the principles of entrepreneurship and sustainability.

His research has been supported by the Hong Kong General Research Grants Council, Chiang-Ching Kuo International Research Grants, Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SIEFUND) research grant, among others. His research has won international accolades and prestigious awards such as the Best Paper Award at the Academy of Management 2024 (Technology and Innovation Management Division) and 2022 (Entrepreneurship Division), Kooiman Best Paper Award 2021, International Social Innovation Research Conference (ISIRC) Award, and Emerald Literati 2010 Award.  

He was ranked in the Top 2% of all (>10 million) scholars in both the Business and Economics and Political Science and Public Administration categories in an author-citation study by Stanford University as of 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021. He was ranked as one of the Top 3 scholars in Political Science and Public Administration in China in the 2024 citation count and ranked in the Top 5 in 2023.

He is an editorial board member of the Academy of Management Perspectives and Public Administration and Development. He serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Business Ethics, Environment and Responsibility, Social Enterprise Journal, and Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, among others. He speaks regularly in various local, regional, and international forums, including Asia, Europe, and the United States, and has given commentaries in the media, including South China Morning Post, CoinTelegraph, Forkast News, and The Jakarta Post. 

Before rejoining CityU in 2022, he held tenured appointments as Associate Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the City University of Hong Kong (joint appointment between the Department of Management and Department of Public Policy), as well as Assistant Professors at the University of Leeds (UK) and University of Amsterdam (NL) business schools.

Chandra completed his PhD in Entrepreneurship and Master of Commerce (Marketing) at The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. He was trained as an accountant in his first degree. Before and in between his academic life, he worked as Assistant Vice President of Decision Analytics at HSBC Hong Kong, as an analyst at Ruder Finn Asia (Singapore), as a strategic planner at Lowe Lintas (Jakarta), and as an auditor at Ernst & Young (Jakarta). He has held visiting positions at the University of Leeds.

He accepts applications for PhD and postdoctoral candidates to work on cutting-edge topics every year. 

Published:

• Artificial Intelligence as a Framework for Public Service Innovation, Public Money & Management (forthcoming)
• "Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Human Relations: Eastern and Western Perspectives." Nature Springer (forthcoming 2025)
• Algorithms for a New Season? Mapping a Decade of Research on the Artificial Intelligence-Driven Digital Transformation of Public Administration. Public Management Review (here)
• Social Enterprise as Political Work: Perspectives from the Global South. Public Management Review, 27(6): 1701-1740 (here). (SSCI, Q1, IF: 4.9).
• Artificial Intelligence Forces Us to Rethink Knightian Uncertainty: A Commentary on Townsend et al.'s "Are the Futures Computable", Academy of Management Review, 50(2): 471-473 (here) (SSCI, Q1, IF: 14.6)
• Winning the Heart and Shaping the Mind with "Serious Play": The Efficacy of Social Entrepreneurship Comics as Ethical Business Pedagogy. Journal of Business Ethics, 188: 441-465. (here). (FT50, Q1, IF: 6.1)
• Social Entrepreneurship in the Context of Disaster Recovery: Organizing for Public Value Creation. Public Management Review, 23(12), 1856-1877 (here) (SSCI, Q1, IF: 4.9). Kooiman Award Winner for Best Paper 2021 by IRSPM (link). > 10,000 views since 2021.
• Topic Modeling the Research-Practice Gap in Public Administration. Public Administration Review, 79(6), 931-937 (here). (SSCI, Q1, IF: 8.3)
• How Does a Seminal Article in Public Administration Diffuse and Influence the Field? Bibliometric Methods and the Case of Hood's "A Public Management For All Seasons?". International Public Management Journal, 22(5), 712-742. (here). (SSCI, Q1, IF: 2.6)
• New Narratives of Development Work? Making Sense of Social Entrepreneurs' Development Narratives Across Time and Economies. World Development, 107, 306-326. (here). (SSCI, Q1, IF: 6.9)
• Social Entrepreneurship as Emancipatory Work. Journal of Business Venturing, 32(6), 657-673. (here). (FT50, SSCI, Q1, IF: 8.7)
• A Time-Based Model of International Entrepreneurial Opportunity Evaluation. Journal of International Business Studies, 48(4), 423-451. (here). (FT50, SSCI, Q1, IF: 11.6). Accessed > 14,000 times since publication.

In-progress:

• Comics Go To Schools, Campuses, and Conferences 2025 (here), as part of the CLASS RAE Impact Case Nomination.
• Guest Editor, Journal of Business Venturing (FT50, IF: 7.7), Special Issue on AI: "Theory as Usual? Entrepreneurial Futures in the Age of AI". Submission dateline: 1 Nov 2025. Link to CFP. 

• CityU TDG Grant, Nurturing the Passion and Enhancing the Outcomes of Artificial Intelligence-Driven Entrepreneurs and Innovators. Principal Investigator (2024-2025).

• UGC Fund for Innovative Technology-in-Use (FITE) Grant, Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence. Principal Investigator (2023-2025).

• General Research Fund (GRF) Grant, Understanding the Governance of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations as a Novel Organizational Form in the Blockchain Economy. Role: Principal Investigator (Co-I: Fabrice Lumineau, HKU) (2024-2026)
• GRF Grant, Legitimacy of Social Enterprises and Customer Patronization. Principal Investigator (Co-I: Long Wang, CityU) (2021-2023); in-progress.

• Guest Editor, Journal of Business Venturing (Q1)
• Editorial Board Member, Academy of Management Perspectives (Q1, IF: 8.9)
• Editorial Board Member, Public Administration and Development (Q2, IF: 2.6)
• Associate Editor, Journal of Business Venturing Insights (Q1)
• Guest Editor, Journal of Asian Public Policy (Q1)
• Associate Editor, Business Ethics, The Environment & Responsibility (Q1)
• Associate Editors, Journal of Social Entrepreneurship (Q1) and Social Enterprise Journal (Q2)

• Panel Member and Assessor, Social Enterprise Endorsement Mark Certification, Hong Kong General Chamber of Social Enterprise (since 2019)

• Organizing Committee Member and Convener of the Academic Forum, Hong Kong Social Enterprise Summit (HKSES) (since 2016)

• Best Paper Award, The Annual Academy of Management Meeting 2024, "Finetuning Artificial Intelligence for Entrepreneurial Pitching Effectiveness." Awarded by the Academy of Management. Shared with Prof Stratos Ramoglou and Dr Shang Liang.
• Best Paper Award, The Annual Academy of Management Meeting 2022, "The Mechanisms of Performance in Social Entrepreneurship: Assemblage, Market Building, Issue Selling". Awarded by the Academy of Management. Shared with Long Wang (CityU).
• Kooiman Best Paper Award 2021, paper title: "Social entrepreneurship in the context of disaster recovery: Organizing for public value creation". Awarded by IRSPM, Public Management Review, and Routledge (United Kingdom). Shared with Dr Arnil Aras (AVPN)
• Best Paper Award, International Social Innovation Research Conference (ISIRC) 2020, Sheffield, United Kingdom, 1-3 Sept 2020. Published Journal of Social Policy in 2021. Shared with Prof Michael Roy (GCU) and Shang Liang (EduUHK)