Professor Kevin Zhou, Chair of Strategy and International Business, has been named by Clarivate Analytics in the list of “Highly Cited Researchers 2020” among the world’s top researchers for five consecutive years since 2016.
The list recognises world-class researchers selected for their exceptional performance, demonstrated by production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in Web of Science.
Gauri Mahendru, a year 3 BBA(IBGM) student wins the championship (team award) in the “International Business Agility Labs: Accounting”, a virtual global case competition organised by the Center for Global Business of the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland during November 6 – 13, 2020. She and her team members from other universities worked together to solve a real-world business problem for a Singaporean company.
The multicultural team embraced the differences in others because of the diverse skills and perspective that each team member can bring to the table. “By working with people from different parts of the world, I witnessed the advantages of diversity of thought firsthand. I also learnt to effectively communicate and collaborate with people from different backgrounds. I am extremely grateful to HKU Business School for offering me this exciting opportunity and look forward to more of such experiences in the future,” says Gauri.
The champion team consisted of five members — Gauri Mahendru (HKU), Hiu Lam Liu (HKUST), Allison Lu (UMD), Dajah Chambers (Bowie State), and Brianna Hooks (Bowie State).
The inaugural HKU Business Case Challenge (HBCC) 2020, organised by HKU Business School, was successfully completed on November 7, 2020.
Aiming to provide an opportunity for undergraduate students to hone their case cracking, analytical and presentation skills for participating in future case competitions, HBCC was launched in September 2020. 28 teams of students from HKU Business School worked on the Ocean Park case and submitted video presentations in the Preliminary Round. Six best teams advanced to the Final Round and presented their solutions to the judging panel. Champion, 1st Runner-up and 2nd Runner-up were identified. The Champion team will represent HKU Business School to compete with elite students from top universities around the globe in one of the international case competitions.
Dr. Winnie LEUNG, Assistant Dean (Undergraduate) of HKU Business School commented that both the School and the participating students had achieved their goals through this challenge. “The competition is very competitive this year. Throughout the process, students have practised a lot on their problem-solving skills, communication skills and leadership skills. The School has also achieved our goal for providing a platform to develop students’ soft skills as well as identifying candidates for overseas case competitions.” Dr. Leung said.
Mr. Jeroen VAN DEN BERG, Assistant Director of Asia Case Research Centre of HKU Business School said, “I am truly surprised by the quality of the presentations. All teams did very well.” Another judge, Mr. Jimmy WOO, Adjunct Associate Professor of HKU Business School, also mentioned that, “The case question was not an easy situation to resolve. I am impressed by all teams’ performance.”
Ms. Christina WONG, Accenture Managing Director for Strategy & Consulting in Greater China, who was also one of the judges, gave pieces of advice to the teams, “In today’s world, there is a new way of doing innovation and co-creation. Don’t focus too much on what you think. Instead, you should gather all the opinions from different people and try to come up with a solution that can incorporate different perspectives. This will help innovations, and making ideas to come true!”
Champion: Team “Advocase”
Dr. Winnie LEUNG, Assistant Dean (Undergraduate) of HKU Business School (first from left), presents the award to the Champion team.
Team Members Mr. KUA Mang Ting Daniel, BBA(Acc&Fin), Year 1 (photo position: 1st from right) Miss RYOU Soo Min, BBA, Year 2 (this student presented through Zoom as she was out of town on the presentation day) Miss WIJAYA Swanny, BSc(QFin),Year 2 (photo position: 2nd from right) Miss ZHANG Borui, BEcon&Fin, Year 2 (photo position: 2nd from left)
Students’ Sharing “From HBCC, we have gained a lot of invaluable lessons, the biggest takeaway is the significance of teamwork. Despite having known each other for only one month, we learned to trust and be supportive to each other throughout the journey, which was reflected during the presentation and Q&A session and was valued by the judges. Besides that, we also got the opportunity to train our hard skills in case-cracking, such as constructing a sound business strategy and performing financial analysis. We still have a long way to go, and HBCC has made us excited for future case competitions!”
1st Runner-up: Team “HKU”
Mr. Jeroen VAN DEN BERG, Assistant Director of Asia Case Research Centre of HKU Business School (first from left), and Mr. Jimmy WOO, Adjunct Associate Professor of HKU Business School (first from right), present the award to the 1st Runner-up team.
Team Members Mr. CHENG Ryan, BBA(Law)&LLB, Year 2 (2nd from right) Miss CHAN Ingrid Nga Yu, BBA(Acc&Fin), Year 2 (3rd from right) Mr. CHAN Yin Tsung Lawrence, BBA(IBGM), Year 2 (3rd from left) Miss LAM Hoi Ting Christy, BBA(IBGM), Year 2 (2nd from left)
Students’ Sharing “This case was highly relevant to us: we grew up with Ocean Park and now as adults, we proposed solutions to save our childhood park. Throughout the preparation process, we enhanced our understanding and appreciation of our local history and culture. Although we participated in external case competitions before, we gained a lot from the HKU Business Case Challenge including all the new-found knowledge as well as advices given by the esteemed judges. We are confident that with all these valuable knowledge and advices, our performance in future case competitions will be more compelling and in-depth.”
2nd Runner-up: Team “Euphoria”
Ms. Christina WONG, Accenture Managing Director for Strategy & Consulting in Greater China (first from right), presents the award to the 2nd Runner-up team.
Team Members Miss FUNG Cheuk Lam, BBA(Law)&LLB, Year 2 (2nd from left) Miss LEE Chi Lam Esther, BEcon&Fin, Year 3 (3rd from left) Miss LUI On Ni, BBA(Law)&LLB, Year 4 (2nd from right) Miss TANG Pui Lam, BBA(Law)&LLB, Year 2 (1st from left)
Students’ Sharing “HKU Business Case Challenge 2020 had been a fruitful journey to accelerate our learning curve, all the way from case cracking, identification of root causes, team cooperation to presentation and delivery. It was a perfect opportunity for our team to testify and apply the skill sets we acquired from the workshops organised by HKU International Case Society. It also strengthened our team bonding, especially when the case this time involved Ocean Park – a place of Collective Memories and the Legendary Risen Dead Miracle! We sincerely thank all distinguished judges for their detailed and astute advices!”
On November 13, the Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning) announced the recipients of the University’s Teaching Excellence Awards 2020. Recipients from HKU Business School are:
Outstanding Teaching Award – Individual
Dr. Matthias Buehlmaier Principal Lecturer
Outstanding Teaching Award – Team
Mr. David Bishop Principal Lecturer
Teaching Innovation Award – Individual
Dr. Matthias Buehlmaier Principal Lecturer for Pioneering Social Learning in Business Education with Yocle
Teaching Innovation Award – Team
Mr. David Bishop Mr. David Lee Principal Lecturer Principal Lecturer for HKU edX Professional Certificate Programme in FinTech
The Faculty Teaching Award Scheme recognises and rewards teachers with outstanding achievements and significant contributions in teaching and student learning in the Faculty. The award-winners for the academic year 2019-20 are:
Faculty Outstanding Teacher Award (Undergraduate Teaching)
Dr. Tak Huang Assistant Professor
“I believe that effective teaching involves providing a challenging but supportive learning experience for students. Students may not like challenges, but they often learn better from their own mistakes as they try to handle the challenges in their learning. As teachers, we may support students’ learning by guiding them to solve the problems on their own and providing ample feedback to facilitate this process. In this way, students not only have a better grasp of the disciplinary knowledge but also are empowered with confidence in their own ability to take up whatever challenges they may encounter in their life.”
Mr. David Lee Principal Lecturer
“Teaching remains a humbling experience for me, but I’m always grateful for the opportunity to teach great students and to be supported by and work with wonderful colleagues. During these turbulent times, I’ve been reminded of the positive impact that we can still have through our teaching even though we are limited in how we interact with our students. As I’ve reflected on this responsibility, I’ve realized in many ways that teachers are leaders, and collectively we have an opportunity to increase both our teaching and leadership agility to better serve our students. It has been meaningful to be on this learning journey with students as we learn to navigate this new landscape together.
And perhaps because of the current challenges, I am acutely aware, even more than previous years, of the privilege it is in my life to teach at HKU.”
Professor Xin Wang Professor
“The accounting profession has faced significant challenges in the recent years with the technology advancement. It is not surprising that students often raise concerns about whether the financial accounting knowledge is still useful to foster problem-solving skill and how the accounting courses can enhance students’ knowledge suitable for the new era of big data. To ensure students’ learning experience in my course, my first goal is to engage students in learning by clarifying that our accounting system has been developing together with the changes in the modern society and that the role of accounting knowledge has never been weakened and instead become more important in all aspects of the modern economy. For various accounting topics, I make lectures very efficient by focusing on the fundamental concepts with intuitive examples of the real life. In addition, I emphasize the evolvement of accounting rules because I see the necessity to let students know that our accounting profession embraces the developments in other disciplines including economics, finance and even computer engineering. I often use the example of the change in the accounting rules for the capitalization of R&D costs for software industry.
The second goal of my teaching is to help students become smart users of financial information. Many students have an impression of accounting being “boring”. My tactic is to teach them to dig out useful information from those seemingly boring accounting data. Once students realize that accounting data is a gold mine for financial analysis and investment decisions, they are incentivized to exert efforts on the learning of accounting subjects.
Overall, I strive for excellence in teaching. My efforts on the two teaching goals seem to work very well for students’ learning experience in my course. I am happy to share my insights with you.”
Faculty Outstanding Teacher Award (Postgraduate Teaching)
Dr. Sammy Fung Principal Lecturer
“It is my great pleasure to serve as a lecturer in the Business School at HKU over the past decade. My teaching practice has always revolved around two major focuses. First, “learn how to think” – I aspire to create a learning environment that fosters not only students’ technical knowledge, but also their critical thinking and problem solving skills. Second, “learn to learn” – I encourage students to become self-directed learners and problem solvers, engage their curiosity towards the material presented and take that curiosity to the next level by discovering new possibilities and new aspects in their daily lives. I strongly believe that inspiring students for lifelong learning which can lead them to achieve a successful career and contribute to the society in the future. ”
Professor Jin Li Professor
“As an economist, my approach to teaching is based on demand and supply. On the demand side, I listen to students and illustrate concepts and principles using examples they find interesting. This way, students become more engaged and find the class easier to follow. On the supply side, I focus on topics linked to my research expertise. This makes me a more enthusiastic and effective teacher. But demand and supply aside, there is also trust. I trust our students and design the class to empower them. I trust myself to experiment with new material and topics. Trust makes teaching fun and dynamic. ”
Dr. Rujing Meng Principal Lecturer
“I love teaching. I always teach from the bottom of my heart. As to teaching philosophy, I deeply believe in the importance of teachers’ passion in teaching and genuinely care about students in achieving effective learning. With sincere love for teaching and students, I adopt student-centered approach to course and programme design and advocate learning-by-doing in helping students achieve meaningful learning outcomes.
I am glad to make a difference in students’ learning. A student commented, “She can always explain concepts clearly. Her teaching style makes me feel inspired in a way that I am eager to learn more about the financial world. She is definitely one of the best professors in FBE.” I will strive to continue making a positive impact on students’ learning and life.”
Faculty Teaching Innovation Award
Dr. Matthias Buehlmaier Principal Lecturer
“To support students and guide them, I use technology to create a community in which students can interact and learn from each other, ultimately fostering a form of social learning. To facilitate the creation of a community, I use a new app called “Yocle,” whose basic idea can be summarized as being a social media app for teaching and learning. I am pioneering its use at HKU Business School with the goal of discovering whether it can successfully be used in business education. It is a new app and I was one of the few people using it at the beginning at HKU, with the goal of making myself very approachable to students. I was very fortunate to be invited to present at several workshops at the Centre for Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL) and, together with Dr. Cecilia Chan, have created an introductory video about Yocle available on YouTube. Overall, I am deeply grateful for the generous support, mentoring, and encouragement received over the years at HKU Business School and CETL; without them it would not have been possible to receive the inaugural Faculty Teaching Innovation Award.”
Congratulations to our seven faculty members, who have been included in the list by Clarivate Analytics as the top 1% worldwide by citations in at least one of the 22 research fields:
2020 is a year full of challenges but not lack of opportunities for technologies related in finance and business to shine. It is also a year where corporate leadership and visionary management of directors put to the absolute test. Themed ‘Vanguard in Challenging Times’, the Director’s Symposium 2020 organised by The Hong Kong Institute of Directors had gathered over 200 directors and senior officers from diverse enterprises. A few of top industry leaders and business experts were invited to share their managerial insights on how to steer through the increasingly turbulent world. One of the guest speakers, Professor Hongbin Cai, Dean of HKU Business School, led a highlighted talk on an overview of economic outlook during the event.
Professor Cai believes that the global economy’s future is ultimately dependent on the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the stability of individual economies prior the pandemic. Regarding to the second point, Professor Cai observes that the global economy has never fully recovered from the 2008 financial crises due to expansionary monetary policies and close-to-zero interest rates. These policies have wrought long term damages and malign sequelae to the global financial systems lasting hitherto. While excessive liquidity propelled asset prices in the global stock market, it also created a decade long of jobless growth worldwide, exacerbating income inequality on a global scale that pulled the trigger of deglobalisation.
In a world full of uncertainty and fear, at the center of its stage, Professor Cai sees the intensifying tension between the United States (US) and China. He believes that the US will continue to contain China regardless of the result of the US Election. Regarding the economic strength of the US, Professor Cai believes that it is supported by a strong microeconomic foundation. Research and Development of the US remains top notched, and its innovation industry is vigorous and booming. However, it is currently flanked by social crisis and recessive economic problems brought by zero interest rates and national debt. As the US economy is full of uncertainties, it is futile to predict its future. Professor Cai urges the audience to stay tuned to the US’ presidential election for better insights.
China on the other hand, is on better grounds. Not only it is the only major country manages to fully contain domestic spread of COVID-19, it is the only major economy that manages to have positive economic growth in 2020. However, Professor Cai calls for prudence as deglobalisation and the pandemic have caused a replacement effect. Countries around the world will attempt to relocate their entire supply chains or part of their supply chains overseas in order to diversify production risks. In addition, sanctions from the US may also dissuade foreign capital from landing in China.
To survive the new normal, China has come up with the idea of ‘Dual Circulations’. Professor Cai stresses that dual circulation is not seclusion. It still emphasises further opening-up of the economy and bolstering ties with other nations. But the balance will inevitably be tilting towards the domestic market. Against this backdrop, Professor Cai predicts that, in the upcoming 14th Five-Year Plan, the central government will stress more on cracking down speculation on real estates and manufacturing investments. On the other hand, it will require local governments to ponder new investment plans on technological innovations, while maintaining a delicate balance between growth and social welfare.
Professor Cai believes that ‘Dual Circulations’ could also benefit the Hong Kong economy. He observes the competitiveness of Hong Kong’s intermediary-based economy is being eroded by increasing deglobalisation and technological development worldwide, and its growth momentum has lost before the pandemic and social unrest. Therefore, Hong Kong must transform to a knowledge-based, innovation-driven economy and fully utilise its unique strengths to contribute in China’s external circulation. As Hong Kong has always managed to emerge stronger after surmounting an adversity, Professor Cai is positive that Hong Kong will eventually prevail.
Professor Echo Wen Wan, Professor of Marketing at HKU Business School, recently became a Marketing Science Institute (MSI) Scholar – a distinguished accolade to recognise top mid-career academics for their high-quality research which demonstrates strong practical relevance to address real-world marketing issues.
“I am honoured to be selected as one of the 35 MSI Scholars in 2020. As I was awarded as a MSI Young Scholar back in 2013, I feel grateful for MSI’s nurturing all along. Their continued recognition motivates me to keep pursuing my research interests and establishing more academic-industry partnerships. I would also like to thank HKU Business School for providing me such an inspiring environment. The encouragement and support I have received from my wonderful colleagues have helped me get to where I am today,” said Professor Wan.
Professor Wan’s research focuses on anthropomorphism of marketing with a sharp focus on how various types of anthropomorphism features on AI devices and service robot (e.g. physical morphology and voice) may affect consumers’ motivational, cognitive, affective and behavioural responses and the implications for marketers. Anthropomorphism refers to the use of personification in branding and communication. The M&M chocolate bean characters and Michelin man are classic examples. This line of research offers insights for marketers and industries on when they will benefit versus suffer from using brand or product anthropomorphism and how they can use anthropomorphism wisely in their marketing strategies.
At HKU, Professor Wan is also the Associate Director of the Contemporary Marketing Centre. She received her PhD degree in Marketing from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
MSI is a non-profit research organisation dedicated to bridging the gap between academic marketing theory and business practice. Professor Echo Wan and Dr. Jayson Jia were named as MSI Young Scholars in 2013 and 2019 respectively. Professor David Tse, Chair Professor of International Marketing, served as a MSI Academic Trustee in 2008 to advise and support MSI’s research efforts and represent MSI’s worldwide community of marketing scholars.
The Faculty of Business and Economics hosted more than 20 sessions of admission seminars and programme talks as well as a programme information exhibition at the HKU Information Day held on November 3, 2018. Thousands of guests were attracted to this annual event. Prospective students and their parents were able to interact with our faculty members and student ambassadors, and learned about the academic and campus life in HKU.
The HKU 200th Congregation and the Faculty of Business and Economics Graduation Ceremony was held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on November 12, 2018. The ceremony was presided by Professor Xiang Zhang, the President and Vice-Chancellor of HKU.
We are honoured to have Ms Louisa Cheang, Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive of Hang Seng Bank, as our Guest-of-Honour to address the graduates this year. Ms Cheang is a proud alumnus of HKU and a Chapter Honouree of Beta Gamma Sigma – The University of Hong Kong Chapter. She has been a seasoned banking professional and recognised as one of the successful female leaders in the industry.
In the ceremony, Ms Cheang delivered her keynote speech to graduates. She gave her heartfelt congratulations to all the graduates and wished them every success in their future.
