Northern Illinois University
Department of Public Administration
School of Public and Global Affairs

Julie Langer is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Administration at Northern Illinois University. She studies how organizations are used as vehicles for the expression of identity and what this means for their ability to both create and destroy value in society. Langer’s work has received best paper award recognition from the Academy of Management, public and nonprofit division, the journal Nonprofit Management and Leadership and the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action. Her most recent work explores the roles of public and nonprofit organizations in sustaining a robust democracy. This work can be found in leading journals such as Public Management Review, Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly and the American Review of Public Administration. Prior to her career in academia, Julie worked in the nonprofit sector leading collective impact initiatives aimed at addressing the skills gap in Chicago's health services sector.

Areas of Expertise

• Public management
• Nonprofit management
• Organizational behavior
• Organizational identity
• Sector theory

Selected Publications

Langer, J., & Feeney, M. K. (2023). Who “We” are matters: the influence of organizational identity orientation on public participation in government. Public Management Review, 1-20.

LeRoux, K., Langer, J., & Plotner, S. (2022, August). Nonprofit Messaging and the 2020 Election: Findings from a Nonpartisan Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) Field Experiment. In Nonprofit Policy Forum. De Gruyter.

Langer, J., (2022). Bureaucracy and the Imaginal Realm: Max Weber, Rationality and the Substantive Basis of Public Administration. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance.

Langer, J., Siciliano, M., and LeRoux, K. (2022). Applying the Repertory Grid Technique to Advance Nonprofit Collaboration: A Situational Theory of Partner Selection. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations.

Langer, J.A., and Feeney, M.K. (2022). Organizational Identity Orientation: A Public Sector Research Agenda. In The Handbook of Research on Motivation in Public Administration. Edmund C. Stazyk and Randall S. Davis, Edward Elgar Publishing.

Langer, J., (2021). Understanding the Spirit of the Sectors: Exploring Identity in a New Era of Organizing. Administration & Society.

LeRoux, K., and Langer, J. (2019). From nonprofit leader to elected official: Examining political ambition in the nonprofit sector. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 48(1), 208-226.

Langer, J., Feeney, M. K., and Lee, S. E. (2017). Employee Fit and Job Satisfaction in Bureaucratic and Entrepreneurial Work Environments. Review of Public Personnel Administration.

Langer, J. and LeRoux, K. (2017). Developmental Culture and Effectiveness in Nonprofit Organizations. Public Performance and Management Review.

LeRoux, K., and Langer, J. (2016). What Nonprofit Executives Want and What They Get from Board Members. Nonprofit Management and Leadership.

Feeney, M. K., and Langer, J. (2015). Getting Ahead in the Public-Sector Perceptions of Managers in US Municipalities. The American Review of Public Administration.