Christof Brandtner

Christof Brandtner is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University. He studies the diffusion and implementation of administrative practices in the public and nonprofit sector. Christof's dissertation investigates cities' capacity to plan and execute solutions to climate change. Tracking the adoption of resilience strategies in the US and worldwide since 2000, this work focuses on the role of professional inter-city networks and local civil society organizations for why do some cities respond more proactively and strategically to global challenges than others. His research also includes other studies that investigate the co-evolution of organizations and their environments. They include work on social innovation and transportation policy in cities, capacity-building and transparency in charitable organizations, and soft regulation of corporate behavior through rankings, ratings, and certifications. He uses quantitative methods to analyze organizational behavior and discourse (including computational text analysis) in combination with qualitative techniques such as interviews to gain a deep understanding of his research settings.

Christof holds an M.A. in Sociology from Stanford and a B.S. in public and nonprofit management from the Vienna University of Economics and Business. He is part of a research team studying the Civic Life of Cities at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society and a dissertation fellow at the Institute of Research in the Social Sciences. His research has appeared in journals in sociology, urban studies, and organization studies. Prior to coming to Stanford, Christof assisted in the implementation of outcome-oriented strategic planning in the Austrian federal government as well as the evaluation of public sector reforms in EU member states at the Austrian Institute of Economic Research.