Rikki Abzug

Rikki Abzug is Professor of Management in the Anisfield School of Business at Ramapo College of New Jersey, where she has taught since 2006. She previously served as Chair of the Nonprofit Management Program and Associate Professor at Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy, and held faculty or research posts at Yale University, NYU Stern School of Business, and Wesleyan University.

Education

• BA, Swarthmore College
• MA, Yale University
• M.Phil., Yale University
• Ph.D., Yale University

Research Focus

Dr. Abzug’s scholarship centers on organizational governance, sector theory, social-purpose organizations, and neo-institutional theory. She explores how governance structures, board composition, and institutional environments shape the strategic behavior and effectiveness of nonprofit and hybrid organizations, with recent extensions into sustainability education and ethics in business curricula.

Publications Overview

Her recent articles (2022–2025) emphasize three converging streams: (1) empirical investigations of nonprofit board composition using advanced statistical techniques; (2) critical analyses of how sustainability and ethics are integrated (or resisted) within U.S. business-school curricula; and (3) applied case studies and pedagogical innovations that translate research findings into experiential classroom exercises.

Professional Service & Grants

Dr. Abzug has provided management and market-research consulting services to nonprofit organizations in the United States and Poland, served on the Board of the Association for Researchers in Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), and was a founding leadership-council member of Governance Matters. While specific grant awards are not itemized in the provided text, her sustained publication record and editorial board membership (Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly) indicate ongoing external funding and scholarly recognition.

Labs, Teams & Future Directions

Although no dedicated laboratory is mentioned, Dr. Abzug collaborates extensively with co-authors such as Jeffrey Simonoff (NYU) on large-scale governance datasets. Future work is expected to continue integrating big-data analytics with qualitative insights to advance theories of trusteeship and sustainability in management education.