Professional Summary
Chengyu Fang is an organizational communication scholar who studies how organizations change in response to emerging technologies and shifting institutional environments. Fang's research examines the communication processes through which organizations adopt, adapt to, and make sense of new technologies such as artificial intelligence. Areas of research include studies of: 1) how professions and work practices change as intelligent technologies enter organizational life, 2) how human-machine teams negotiate coordination, agency, and control, and 3) how collaboration and knowledge sharing unfold across disciplinary and expertise boundaries. Fang is a mixed-methods scholar who works across qualitative, quantitative, and computational approaches, including ethnography and interviews, survey research and multilevel modeling, social network analysis, and machine learning for text analysis. A developing line of research extends these questions to hybrid organizing and the organizational forms taking shape in digital industries.
Fang's research has appeared in Communication Research, Management Communication Quarterly, Human-Machine Communication, Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans, and the Journal of International Management, and Fang has contributed a chapter on human collaboration with exoskeletons to The De Gruyter Handbook of Robots in Society and Culture. Fang received the Best of the B.E.S.T. Presentation Award from the Organizational Communication Division of the International Communication Association and was selected for the National Communication Association Doctoral Honors Seminar. Fang presents regularly at the International Communication Association, the National Communication Association, the Academy of Management, the Interdisciplinary Network for Group Research (INGROUP), and International Network for Social Network Analysis (SUNBELT).
Beyond research and teaching, Fang has served as Editorial Assistant for Communication Research and as Student and Early Career Representative for the Communication and Technology Division of the International Communication Association. Fang completed doctoral work in Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he has taught organizational communication, global communication, research methods, and intro to communication courses to more than 1,000 students and received a Designing Learning with AI grant to integrate generative AI into research methods instruction. At the University of Cincinnati, Fang teaches Introduction to Organizational Communication (COMM 3008), Organizational Image, Identity, and Issue Management (COMM 5009), and the Organizational Communication Capstone (COMM 7007).
Education
Ph.D.: University of California, Santa Barbara 2026 (Communication)
M.A.: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 2018 (Communication)
B.A. & B.S.: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 2016 (Communication; Sociology; Psychology)
Publications
Peer Reviewed Publications
Zhang C.X.; Rice R.E.; Fang C. (2026). Exploring personal digital media environments: a configural approach to digital stress. Frontiers in Psychology, 17More Information
Barley W.C.; Dinh L.; Workman H.; Fang C. (2022). Exploring the Relationship Between Interdisciplinary Ties and Linguistic Familiarity Using Multileve. Communication Research, 49 (1) , 33-60More Information
Gibbs J.L.; Kirkwood G.L.; Fang C.; Wilkenfeld J.N. (2021). Negotiating Agency and Control: Theorizing Human-Machine Communication From a Structurational Perspe. Human Machine Communication, 2 (1) , 153-171More Information
Fang C.; Wilkenfeld J.N.; Navick N.; Gibbs J.L. (2023). “AI Am Here to Represent You”: Understanding How Institutional Logics Shape Attitudes Toward Intelli. Management Communication Quarterly, 37 (4) , 941-970More Information
Gibbs J.L.; Eisenberg J.; Fang C.; Wilkenfeld J.N. (2023). Examining how organizational continuities and discontinuities affect the job satisfaction of global . Journal of International Management, 29 (5) More Information
Yan B.; Lewis K.; Figge P.; Hollingshead A.B.; Alexander K.S.; Kim Y.J.; Fang C. (2020). Intelligent machines and teamwork: Help or hindrance?. Academy of Management Annual Meeting ProceedingsMore Information
Kim, Y. J., Zhang, C. X., & Fang, C. (2025). Navigating the human-AI divide: Boundary work in the age of generative AI. Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans, 6 (100214) More Information
Book Chapter
Wilkenfeld, J., Dunbar, N., Fang, C. & Srinivasan, D. (2024). Power and Synchrony in Human Collaboration with Exoskeletons. In The De Gruyter Handbook of Robots in Society and Culture. (pp. 467-488). Berlin, Boston, De Gruyter