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 2018-19 are:

Faculty Outstanding Teacher Award (Undergraduate Teaching)

Dr. Alex CHAN
Principal Lecturer

“My passion in teaching drives me to explore different teaching practices to establish an effective learning environment for my students.  Excellent course preparation and course design is one of essential elements. Furthermore, as I believe that every student in my class is a distinctive individual learner, I do my best to recognize every student and understand the student’s learning progress. Through developing a mutual respect relationship, a teacher can provide a personalized learning experience to individual students. I believe that this personalization practice can effectively enhance students’ learning interests and their commitment to learning process and also let a teacher provide personalized learning guidance to individual students.”

Faculty Special Contribution Teaching Award

The HKU 202^nd Congregation – Faculty of Business and Economics Graduation Ceremony was held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on November 11, 2019. Professor Norman Tien, the Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Institutional Advancement) of HKU, presided the ceremony. Joining us at this memorable occasion also included Guest of Honour and our distinguished alumnus Mr. David Lee, Dean Professor Hongbin Cai, Honorary University Fellow Ms. Irene Man, other faculty members, and about 3,000 guests.

     

     

     

     

     

     

It’s a Family business

As both Dr. Zhuang’s parents are professors in marketing, Dr. Zhuang had been accompanying them in research work from a young age. Even though Dr. Zhuang has eventually followed his parents’ footsteps, he had once rebelled and picked electronics engineering as his undergraduate major. However, at the end of the day, marketing is still the apple in his eye.

“Compare with cold machinery, it is more engaging to interact with people”

Is an academic career worth pursuing? To students aspiring to become a professor, Dr. Zhuang has three cues for them in different stages of the process.

First, think twice before getting started. Being an academic is grueling. One must be very passionate about the discipline. Otherwise, working 24/7 on something you are uninterested in would be excruciating.

Second, never look back during the process. Since the path is not easy, the willingness to let yourself be consumed by research work is the key to run the gauntlet.

Third, it is ok to give up after you tried. Life is all about making choices and choices made could be both right and wrong. It is fine to step back at dead ends but unwise to limit our options.

Interdisciplinary is the key to excel

Dr. Zhuang believes that students with the aspiration to excel in the industry should focus on the latest marketing trends and must develop their acumen in the fields of data mining and AI. Dr. Zhuang observes that the act of persuading without evidence has become an endemic among business students. In the era of data, effective marketing strategies must be supported by concrete and meaningful evidences. Therefore, marketing students must work hard on their numerical reasoning skills.

Multichannel pricing is a heated topic

Currently, Dr. Zhuang is researching on the topic of cross-channel pricing strategy. He discovered that some companies will charge different prices across different sales channels. In the context of mainland China, after a price integration policy was introduced by an omni-channel retailer in 2013, the sales of most products will first decrease and later increase. He believes that the sales fluctuation is attributed to the three kinds of reactions made by consumers in response to price integration.

At the extremes, price-sensitive and experience-sensitive consumers will react oppositely. Price-sensitive consumers will shop less immediately after the price change as price-integration has decreased the low-priced channel’s competitiveness. On the other hand, experience-sensitive consumers may even increase their consumption because of a discrimination-free shopping experiences. Nonetheless, the majority of consumers will quit buying at the first place, and, after a period of accommodation, resume shopping as price integration has reduced their chances of being price discriminated by choosing the wrong channel.

Dr. Zhuang believes that his research findings can provide retailers with a clearer picture about the nature of pricing tactics in the omni-channel retail era. With this information in hand, retailers should be able to decide their multi-channel strategy and develop more effective marketing plans to target different groups of consumers.

What makes a good advertisement?

As a marketing expert, Dr. Zhuang believes that a good ad has to strike a balance among attractiveness, effectiveness, and relevance. For instance, Thai ads are renowned for their immersive viewing experience, the story may drag consumers’ focus away from the advertised product, leading the ads to be ineffective. However, an ad focusing only on the functionalities may be boring to watch. In the online media era, the relevance of ads is increasingly important. An effective ad must be relevant to the contextual preferences of its target consumers. Therefore, putting ads on YouTube under its current matching algorithm might not be a good idea, as it is ineffective in matching relevant ads with relevant audience, making ads more of a nuisance to them.

Way forward in HKU Business School

Before joining the University of Hong Kong (HKU), Dr. Zhuang had taught in the US and he really enjoys the classroom dynamics there. In contrast to the environment of Asian classrooms, he believes that the casual classroom environment in US facilitates teachers to bond with students and encourage intensive knowledge sharing. Dr. Zhuang comments that the young generation is very smart and creative as he can often learn more about the latest global trends from them. What these kids need are enlightenment and guidance from an experienced teacher to unleash their potential.

Now teaching introductory courses in HKU, Dr. Zhuang has changed his views towards HKU students over time. While students might be initially a bit introverted, they have gradually opened up during class discussions. He looks forward to cultivating their interests in marketing.

The success of any school rests upon the success of its graduates, who through their professional and personal achievements will bring honour to their alma mater.

To further strengthen the links between the Faculty and its alumni,  the faculty level alumni association – HKU Business and Economics Alumni Association (HKUBEAA) is officially established with the support and encouragement from all FBE alumni. HKUBEAA is committed to connect every alumni worldwide, and develop a thriving community for alumni to network with, and support one another, in their ongoing professional and personal development.The first round of membership recruitment was successfully held on November 11 at FBE Graduation Ceremony 2019. Class of 2019 graduates gathered at our alumni booth and shared the happy moments with their friends and family members.

HKUBEAA membership is now open to all graduates who wish to join.  Don’t miss out the chance to join our global alumni network and get a HKU Business School Cardholder. Apply here.

Working together we aim to support both the future ambitions of our alumni community and the Faculty. Please stay tuned for upcoming events.

       

     

     

A Fortuitous Occurrence

Professor Fong starts off as a physics major. However, attending an economics elective course has enlightened him on what is his true interests. He found economics fascinating as the methodology is very systematic and formal, while studying human beings and firms is fun. Captured by the knowledge of economics, Professor Fong then changed his major from physics to economics, hopped onto the boat of MPhil, and eventually, embarked on his lifelong scholarly journey.

“You can say that I am an accidental Economist.”

Looking back to his academic path, Professor Fong enjoys every bit of his research journey. It requires great effort and patience. Also, some research projects can take many years to finish. However, once you have succeeded to break through all the hurdles, the sense of achievement is paramount. An advantage of being a scholar is that it is at your full discretion to decide what to research on, you will be always working on something you are truly interested in and enjoy the process. Therefore, Professor Fong strongly encourages students that are fond of knowledge creation and are being really passionate on their discipline to take the academic path.

Teaching as a Privileged Occupation

Professor Fong’s dedication in pedagogy is germinated during his teaching years in a renowned US business school. Nurtured in a culture that values teaching on par with research has deeply impacted Professor Fong’s academic life. Teaching to him has ever since become a noble and privileged profession. He hoped that, even in a minor way, he can produce positive influence on his students’ personal growth. Professor Fong’s passion for teaching was recognized with multiple awards.

Interdisciplinary Knowledge is the Key

Professor Fong’s thirst for knowledge has encouraged him to seek new frontiers to explore. During his early years, Professor Fong has already started to research on interdisciplinary knowledge. As the first local economists researching on how exogenous changes in extra household environmental factors affect independent and spousal leisure between couples, Professor Fong and his coauthor and MPhil thesis advisor found the topic is surprisingly common among psychologists and sociologists while it’s the opposite among economists and the concept of “spousal leisure” was unexplored by them.

He believes that interdisciplinary intellectual exchange and the opportunity to analyze cross-disciplinary knowledge with different methodologies is conducive to academic and research advancement. This experience is remarkable in the sense that significant strides are made in his crusade of knowledge exploration.

The same belief also applies to academic learning. Professor Fong encourages students to learn more about technology and analytics, while focusing on business-related applications. He believes that one should dive deeper in knowledge regarding to machine learning and AI. As the world is getting increasingly digitalized, being tech-savvy and numerical sensitive would greatly strengthen ones’ competitiveness.

Interestingly, Professor Fong also emphasized the importance of learning from the past while we eagerly seek for future opportunities. He highly recommends students to study history, be it Chinese or world history. Possessing rich cultural knowledge might be a helpful tool in networking with people from all walks of life, opening new doors to career, investment or even business opportunities.

Corporate Social Responsibilities as a Heat Topic for Thoughts

When sharing about his recent research, Professor Fong highlights his recent studies on whether engaging in Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) initiatives can enhance firms’ reputation in a dynamic setting. While firms need to build up a reputation for their product quality, some customers genuinely care whether the firm is being socially responsible. He is interested to find out whether these two actions are complementary to each other and whether the analysis will be different based on different kinds of CSR initiates adopted by firms. Interested students could pay attention to it.

Currently, Professor Fong is also conducting a research on fintech lending, with the aim of studying the impacts fintech lenders can bring to the existing competition among traditional financial institutions. We look forward to seeing his research results.

Way Forward

After joining HKU Business School, Professor Fong notices the Faculty is growing rapidly. New initiatives are setting in motion and new challenges awaits. HKU has always been the den of intellectuals and experts, with new scholars joining the faculty, Professor Fong looks forward to creating new knowledge in HKU. 

Former CEO and current HKU professor Philip Chen has met his fair share of challenges throughout his 40-year career. The MBA students in his new elective at the University of Hong Kong learn what used to keep him up at night, what to do in a crisis and how to win the hearts and minds of employees.

The contemporary business environment is increasingly complex, interconnected and constantly changing. Preparing the business leaders of the future is not an easy task. After mastering the basics in their foundational business courses, students increasingly want to hone their leadership skills in a practical and demanding way. Teaching leadership, however, requires special experience. MBA students value academic smarts while also demanding authenticity. They crave openness and frank feedback from people who have been there before. A recent course offered by Prof. Philip Chen, a resourceful leader himself who are passionate about pedagogy, caters to students’ needs on all counts.

Prof. Philip Chen’s experience includes leading organisations such as Cathay Pacific Airways, Swire Pacific and Hang Lung Group. The next step of his career included designing the new experiential MBA elective class “Insights and Lessons – Reflections of a CEO”, blending practical business advice with theoretical models derived from his decades of first-hand experience.  His insistence on the importance of integrity ring true for the next generation, as well, a very clear sign that the next generation demands moral and ethical clarity from their leaders. “His words on how the core values of integrity, honesty and courage shapes a great leader definitely resonates with us”, noted his student Shubha Mani.

A chance to hear from the front lines

“Everything is beautiful at 39,000 feet. Go to the actual ground to have a look”.

This is the advice that MBA student Ada Kung most treasured from Prof. Chen’s class. “His model of strategic considerations stimulated us to think from a holistic view, yet his impactful experiential learning approach impacted us to understand the importance of paying attention to the finer details.”

The class is notable for Prof. Chen’s use of story-telling to illustrate his points. “Philip Chen’s CEO class was one of the most memorable courses I’ve ever taken. It was fascinating to go through cases and hear management stories from the source himself which just made everything stick that much better”, says student Chris Joonseop Kim. Through these insights and anecdotes from his career, students have the chance to apply the practical skills they learned from Professor Chen to real issues such as the importance of winning hearts and minds in managing change; developing and employing critical communications skills; and the pros and cons of different management styles.

“Philip brought so much experience to his course it felt like there wasn’t a situation as CEO he hadn’t heard about but at the same time was humble enough to field our questions and engage us as an audience,” notes student Paul Howard.

Learning by doing

“He believes in learning by doing and this can be seen in his teaching style”, Shubha Mani relates.

Prof. Chen’s unique management experience that combines different industry sectors and spans across the globe becomes excellent teaching materials that cannot be duplicated elsewhere. Over the years, he has weathered more than a few crises. To underscore the difficulty of navigating through challenging times, and the importance of a solid crisis preparation plan, Prof. Chen developed a crisis management drill this fall in which students were placed in unfamiliar situations and tasked to react to them in real time, all while being videotaped by a professional film crew. “During that exercise I learned not only how I behaved in a crisis as a leader, but also how my actions were portrayed outside the team. This class was about teaching us practical lessons about life and about the professional world, something that is unfortunately not given enough attention in education today,” says student Aadil Chitalwala.

Prof. Chen also invited fellow CEOs to supplement the course with their own experiences as leaders of large and complex organizations. Diana Cesar, HSBC Hong Kong CEO and Christine Ip, CEO of United Overseas Bank (UOB) Greater China, presented and helped judge the students’ final presentations, by asking tough questions and providing valuable advice and feedback.

Students appreciate this combination of theory and practical application. “For aspiring leaders, to have a seasoned senior executive share his successes and challenges over their illustrious career is indispensable. This is not something that can be found in traditional leadership courses, or even reading through most of leadership literature. Equally importantly, in addition to industry insights, during the class students will be put in the shoes of senior management and will be asked to act to the best of their ability. Practical courses like this is what can narrow the gap between what employers are looking for and what students are learning in the classroom,” says an MBA student.

A master of change management

Throughout his eminent career, the hallmark of Prof. Chen’s leadership is his ability to implement change, a notoriously difficult feat to accomplish and to master even as a seasoned leader. Prof. Chen speaks honestly about the challenge, which he calls a lonely one.  He reveals that while many people might not be able to imagine the road ahead, eventually the “pride of knowing that you did something right will far exceed the fact that other people couldn’t understand what you were putting in motion,” says Prof. Chen.

Prof. Chen highlights change management issues with his “Six Attributes Model”. The paradigm looks at critical issues such as understanding the dominant coalitions in companies; and the importance of taking time when reforming to get to the root cause of organisational malaise.

He is widely applauded for guiding Cathay’s consolidation of its share of the mainland China market with the acquisition of Dragonair. However, despite his famed approach to large mergers and acquisitions, Prof. Chen insists that small changes can also have large impact. Prof. Chen relates that there does not always have to be a fundamental sweeping reform, and that it’s possible to implement small actions that have outsized results. While working at Cathay, Prof. Chen tapped his network to bring Häagen-Dazs ice cream to inflight service, in one fell swoop introducing the legendary US brand to both Cathay and Hong Kong. To keep costs low, Prof. Chen asked for a smaller cup and bargained for a significantly cheaper price. “Nobody talked about the check-in, the airport security, the inflight meal or the baggage delivery after a trip. Everybody recalled the Häagen-Dazs ice cream,” says Prof. Chen.

Philip Chen has proven himself to be a Hong Kong legend both inside and outside the classroom. “Never had I anticipated that I would get the opportunity to learn business and life skills in one of my classes. Prof. Chen has accomplished what few in the professional world have ever achieved,” says Aadil Chitalwala. For the fortunate students in his class, this extraordinary experience is sure to be a highlight of their MBA journey.

A team of four FBE students won the Merit Award in the 2019 Deloitte Tax Championship. The team entered the National Contest themed Leading to success: be bold, be creative held in Chengdu from 25^th to 27^th October 2019. Participating students in the competition were from top universities in Greater China to exchange knowledge and insights on tax and business, particularly in international tax and outbound M&A activities this year.

Deloitte Tax Championship is an international competition promoting education, research and innovation in taxation by supporting an array of national and local programmes across Greater China. It also act as a platform for university students to apply their tax knowledge and receive professional tax training.

Thanks to Dr. Christina Ng, Principal Lecturer in Accounting and Law, for being the advisor of the team, and congratulations to all the team members.

Sharing from the Awarded Students (TBC):
KAT Shun Shun, BBA(Acc&Fin)
MA Wanqiu, BBA(Acc&Fin)
GU Yidie, BBA(Acc&Fin)
LAU Hiu Yung, BBA(Law)&LLB

The Kick-off Ceremony of Faculty of Business and Economics Mentorship Programme 2019-20 successfully took place on 23 October. We were delighted to welcome a record high of mentors with diversified business background, most of whom are alumni, friends and supporters of the Faculty, as well as about 70 student mentees to embark on this year’s mentorship journey.

Professor Hongbin Cai, Dean of Business and Economics kick-started the event with a warm welcome to our mentors and mentees. He expressed gratitude to mentors for their generous support to the Faculty over the years, and hoped mentees this year could get the most out of the programme.

Three young alumni Mr. Udara Senevirathne (BEcon&Fin 2017), Senior Officer – Business Development, New World Development Company Limited, Mr. Teddy Chiu (BBA(Acc&Fin) 2018), Analyst of Accenture and Ms. Natalie Law (BBA 2019), Analyst of Citi Private Bank, who had previously participated in the Mentorship Programme as mentees had shared their career insights and study tips with current students.

The Faculty strives to provide opportunities for students to connect with the real business world. Mentoring is especially valuable in empowering students by sharing of mentors’ knowledge and experience, encouragement and inspiration. Through regular mentoring sessions in the academic year, we believe students can gain professional and personal developments.

HKU Business School Shenzhen Alumni Dinner cum HKU-PKU EMBA Welcome Dinner 2019 was successfully held in Shenzhen on 9 October. Nearly 200 alumni, students, and guests gathered in this memorable evening.

Speaking at the dinner, Professor Hongbin CAI, Dean of Business and Economics expressed gratitude to alumni and students for their support to the Faculty over the years, and hoped they would continue to render their support to the Faculty’s future development.

“Alumni is the key driver of the rapid growth of the Faculty. Leveraging on the synergies and development potential brought forth by the strong connection between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, the Faculty will fully grasp the opportunities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and play a key role in nurturing world-class business talent,” Dean CAI said.

Event highlight of the day was the speech made by our special guest, Dr. Song LI, Founder of Zhenai.com. Zhenai.com is now the largest paid matchmaking website in China and Asia. The registered members of Zhenai.com reaches approximately 200 million and the annual revenue is expected to be nearly 3 billion yuan in 2019.

Dr. Li shared his entrepreneurial journey of walking away from a lucrative investment banker job to start his own business. He emphasised that a successful entrepreneurship relies heavily on the access to potential market. Market shows that entrepreneurships usually fail due to a lack of market demand.

He concluded by advising the audience “to be flexible and to be tough”. He said, “And you have to be brutally honest with yourself about your idea. Entrepreneurship is a journey of exploration not only of your mind, but also of the journey itself”.

In the future, we hope to host more alumni activities, and work closely with alumni and students to create a network in connecting Hong Kong, China and the world.  We also look forward to joining hands with alumni to lift our Faculty to new heights.