FZ (Fanny) Chen, MSc

Biography

Fanny Chen is a PhD candidate at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, in the Netherlands.

Research

Her research focuses on socially responsible purchasing, with an emphasis on ethics and integrity, value-based purchasing, and sustainable procurement in the humanitarian sector. Her first dissertation paper identifies ethically questionable purchasing practices and applies a relatively new method – the Extended Crosswise Model – to estimate their prevalence while accounting for social desirability bias. This paper was published in the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management and was recognized as a finalist for the journal’s Best Paper of 2024 award. The study was also featured on the cover of Deal!, the magazine of the Dutch Purchasing and Supply Management Association, in 2023. 

During the spring semester of 2024, she completed a five-month, self-arranged research visit at the Department of Operations and Business Analytics at The Ohio State University. This visit provided valuable support for the development of her second and third dissertation papers, both of which are experimental studies. The second paper investigates how buyers’ supplier selection decisions are influenced by different types of undue managerial influence. The third explores how sourcing decision frameworks, such as the widely used Total Cost of Ownership, shape value-based purchasing.

In a separate research project, she uses secondary data to examine the extent to which humanitarian organizations comply with established sustainability standards.

Her research has also drawn attention from industry professionals. She was invited to speak at the Nevi Procurement Day and the Sales Management Association Tender Event, contributed at the CPO Summit, and presented at companies in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Academic Service

In the early years of her PhD, Fanny served as the PhD representative of her department, regularly meeting with the executive committee and initiating a buddy system to support new PhD students. She was also a board member of Young@EUR, the network for early-career employees at Erasmus University. More recently, she was invited to join the Journal of Operations Management’s Emerging-Scholar Ambassadorial Core, where she contributed, among other things, by creating a video on controlled laboratory experiments. She also co-organized the IPSERA Conference 2025. Additionally, Fanny serves as a reviewer and has been honored with consecutive Best Reviewer awards in 2024 and 2025 from the Organizational Behavior division of the Academy of Management.

Teaching

Since the start of her PhD, Fanny has taught lectures on procurement ethics and integrity in the core course Purchasing and Supply Management within the MSc Supply Chain Management program, reaching an average of 135 students each year. She has also contributed to developing quizzes and grading assignments and exams for this course. Additionally, she has taught lectures on sustainable humanitarian procurement in the elective course Health and Humanitarian Logistics, also part of the MSc. Supply Chain Management curriculum, with around 50 students. Beyond lecturing, Fanny has coached MSc Supply Chain Management students on their master’s theses and supervised bachelor students during their internships.