The Faculty saw a new wave of joiners between July 2019 to January 2020, bringing their talent and energy to the team. Let’s learn more about these distinguished scholars and experts in their respective fields.

Professor Zhixi WAN
Professor
(Innovation and Information Management) 

With research focusing on supply and value chain management, Professor Wan investigates how firms at different positions of value chains adjust their resources, technological, and operational capabilities to new trends of globalisation and localisation. Other areas of interest include marketplace operations and AI applications, taking the perspective of marketplace operating firms such as ride-hailing platforms. A key question arises: how can the theories and methods of market design improve transactional and operational efficiencies and better serve marketplace users? These two streams of research share themes of joint optimisation of operational processes with economic processes, and both seek to combine theoretic modelling with data and AI techniques.

“Never forget the goal when choosing a route. Along the route, be brave in trial and errors, and constantly update the toolbox.”

Dr. Derrald STICE
Associate Professor (Accounting and Law)

Accounting is a broad discipline. Basically, almost any information coming out of a firm can be considered accounting. The crucial element is how to use this information in the capital markets and improving the quality of that information. Accounting information used in bank loan and public bond contracts is another area of interest for Dr. Stice.

“Find something that interests you and that you are excited to be a part of and don’t be afraid to take risks.”

Dr. Yanhui WU
Associate Professor (Economics)

An applied economist with research focus in media economics and organisational economics, Dr. Yanhui Wu examines the determinants of media bias, the effect of information diffusion in the media on economic activities, and the consequence of political control of information flow. He also investigates how organisational design and the provision of incentives inside firms affect the efficiency of production, innovation and creativity, and the returns to talent. Dr. Wu works with data scientists to develop new big data machine-learning methods that can be applied to a wide range of social science disciplines.

“Cultivate a good taste for knowledge. Extend yourself intellectually through learning what initially frightens you.”

Dr. Thomas MAURER
Associate Professor (Finance)

International finance is the major interest of Dr. Maurer among a wide range of topics he covers. Foreign exchange (FX) markets are the largest asset markets with an average daily trading volume of more than USD 5 trillion, exceeding the tenfold the trading volume of US stocks. FX investors earn high average returns and the currency carry trade significantly outperforms stock markets. Moreover, it is common practice among international firms to hedge exchange rate risk exposures. Finally, central banks’ decisions to intervene in a FX markets have far-reaching consequences. Unfortunately, FX market risks are not well understood, and traditional asset pricing models cannot capture important empirical facts. Dr. Maurer‘s work helps to quantify and understand these risks.

“Do what you are interested in, not what others expect of you.”

Dr. Xing HU
Associate Professor
(Innovation and Information Management)

Dr. Hu explores how new business models, customer behaviour, and incentive issues challenge firms’ management of operational capacity — including limited inventory, production or service capacity. This enthusiasm was ignited by successful applications of revenue management tools in airline and retailing industries via mathematical and economic models to develop operational strategies (such as dynamic pricing, capacity allocation rules, and incentive systems) to help firms increase capacity usage efficiency and hence revenue. Recent projects focus on developing theoretical framework for data-driven solutions, for example, learning-by-doing approaches to improve pricing and inventory in context of online retailing and ride-sharing.

“Success is about adapting to change and innovation.”

Dr. Zhongwen FAN
Assistant Professor (Accounting and Law)

Dr. Fan’s current research focuses on the economic determinants of earnings quality and voluntary disclosure, including which corporate governance mechanisms are effective in curtailing managers’ earnings and management behaviours, and whether firms can issue capital expenditure forecasts to reduce contracting costs with their debtholders. Other topics of interest include how blockchain recordkeeping system can benefit stakeholders. These areas are of fundamental importance for understanding accounting phenomena and recent technology advances in recordkeeping.

“Stay curious and keep learning both inside and outside the classroom.”

Dr. Lin QIU
Assistant Professor (Accounting and Law)

Dr. Qiu is fascinated by the role boards of directors play in corporate governance. The rapid rise in CEO pay over the past few decades has fuelled an intensive debate on fiduciary duty rules and safeguarding shareholders’ interests. Recent regulatory initiatives such as “Say on Pay” and the Dodd-Frank Act aim to reinvigorate fiduciary duty rules and put shareholders back in control. Dr. Qiu seeks to explore the consequences of imperfect rules and effects of the recent attempts at establishing more binding regimes on social welfare.

“Find your passion and work hard. Acquire skills that are difficult to get outside school.”

Dr. Xiang FANG
Assistant Professor (Finance) 

International finance and asset pricing are Dr. Fang’s main areas of interest, including exchange rates, international asset prices and capital flows, and the role of global banks. In a globalised world with substantial amount of international trade and investment, institutions such as global banks are playing a growing role. Though active developments have been made in recent years on these topics, there is a big gap between the supply and demand of our knowledge.

“Update your knowledge. After all, the world is changing rapidly, and knowledge turns out of date at the same speed.”

Dr. Qingchen WANG
Assistant Professor
(Innovation and Information Management)

Designing machine learning techniques can help solve challenging business problems. Recent breakthroughs in machine learning have led to advances on highly challenging problems such as image recognition and machine translation, but little have trickled down to the business domain. In Dr. Wang’s work, breakthroughs are leveraged and applied to business problems with the goal of improving overall business efficiency.

“Focus on building skills and knowledge on a topic of interest and work to become an expert.”

Thanks to the encouraging feedback from FBE students and alumni-to-be, we’ve held two additional #FBEalumni pop-up events at Cyberport and Town Centre respectively in June.

Introducing the limited edition HKU Business School tote bag! The jet-black tote bag with eye-catching design was very popular amongst our students. Fresh and tasty popcorns, instagrammable photo props together with IG machine brought our students a fun and memorable experience with FBE.

The Faculty is excited to bond with alumni-to-be. We hope to see all familiar faces at our next event, FBE Graduation Ceremony!

Aiming to empower business leaders from Chinese mainland by instilling innovative business ideas, impactful business strategies and global mindset, and to reinforce their competitiveness in the global arena, the “Business Leader Programme” launched by Executive Education of the Faculty of Business and Economics has successfully completed its second module from 6 – 9 June.

Named “strategy and innovation”, the second module is targeted to help business leaders acquire skills and strategies to enhance their corporate strengths and competitiveness, at the same time to explore new market opportunities by applying design thinking. Through a series of diverse corporate visits and lectures, the programme aims to help its participants identify their businesses’ competitive advantages in the global market and to understand deeper their risk management competency. 

The first class was jointly delivered by Professor Yuk-fai Fong, Associate Dean (Taught Postgraduate), and Mr. Joseph Chan, Senior Lecturer, both from the Faculty of Business and Economics. Professor Fong highlighted the importance of creating business values in supply chain, and maximising business profits. While Mr. Chan shared his insights on design thinking in running business, and suggested this thinking process as a key to break old rules and regulations, but simultaneously instil innovative ideas into ongoing projects.

Professor Zheng Zhou, Chair of Strategy and International Business and Professor Jin Li, Professor in Management and Strategy, and Economics, presented lectures in the last two days of the programme. Professor Zhou pointed out that a good dynamic strategy should be analysed from macro, industrial and enterprises levels before putting it in place. On the topic of internal strategy and implementation, Professor Li illustrated how to develop a suitable thinking model and leadership style by different case studies. He also emphasised the need of strategic thinking ability and well use of organisational resources in strategic management.

The class also visied to HKEX and learned about the standards and requirements of listing in Hong Kong. Participants showed keen interest in the actual listing process and the financial market in Hong Kong. It is hoped that the programme can give insights to business leaders, in driving their business goals and stimulating change.

Business leaders visit HKEX

Professor Yuk-fai Fong and Mr. Joseph Chan in class

Professor Zheng Zhou and Professor Jin Li in class

Professor Hongbin Cai, Dean of HKU Faculty of Business and Economics welcomed India’s Ambassador to China Mr. Vikram Misri and Consul-General of India to Hong Kong Mrs. Priyanka Chauhan in their visit to HKU on 6 July.

Both parties exchanged views on India’s technological advancement and explored partnership opportunities between Indian universities and HKU Faculty of Business and Economics, on areas such as student academic exchange, research collaboration and corporate partnership.

Mr. Vikram Misri, Mrs. Priyanka Chauhan and Professor Cai then attended the Hack For India, an HKU hackathon event and listened to the pitches by student teams. Organised by IndiaTech Hong Kong, and supported by Consulate General of India, Hong Kong and HKU iDendron, this hackathon aimed to discover innovative business ideas and solutions among students, and allow the students to showcase their skills to top tech companies.

Dean Cai and Mr. Misri exchanged ideas on potential collaboration between Indian universities and HKU FBE.

The hackathon aimed to discover innovative business ideas and solutions among students, and allow the students to showcase their skills to top tech companies.

Two HKU MBA graduates recently led an educational tour to Hong Kong Science Park to visit two startup companies, SenseTime and HKAI Lab. SenseTime developed Hong Kong’s first hi-tech unicorn. The artificial intelligence (AI) machine has an extensive range of technology including facial recognition, reality augmentation, intelligence monitoring, automatic driving, medical image recognition and among others. HKAI Lab is a not-for-profit initiative fully funded by Alibaba and SenseTime that uses cutting-edge technology and world-class expertise to advance the field of AI as well as providing an established platform to empower start-ups to showcase their technologies.

Tour organisers were Mr. Srijan Kataruka and Ms. Hong Phuc THanh Nguyen, both from HKU MBA Class of 2019. The initial brainstorming phase to the actualisation of the trip was indeed quite a memorable and valuable journey for the two graduates. Srijan recalled that breaking the ice with HKSTP was harder than envisioned. The pair had done many cold calls and emails to reach out to the numerous start-up companies in HKSTP but to no avail. With the recommendation from Hong Phuc’s lecturer, Mr. Savio Kwan, the students managed to breakthrough to Mr. Timothy Leung, Executive Director of HKAI Lab to discuss the plans for their visit.

Together with the collaboration between HKU Faculty of Business and Economics’ MBA office, HKAI Lab and SenseTime, the tour stepped foot into the headquarters of SenseTIme, visited the HKAI Lab and Data Lab and most importantly, gained firsthand knowledge and insights from leading experts in the technology industry. Hong Phuc added not only was it eye-opening to be able to apply what she learnt in the classroom to the ever-changing tech industry, but it was in fact a golden opportunity to gain a sneak peek into the Alibaba operations model. The tour attracted over 30 participants from different universities and received highly positive reviews.

Mr. Feng HONG, Co-founder and Senior Vice President of Xiaomi, the world’s fourth-biggest smartphone company, addressed graduates from class of 2019 at the EMBA-Global Asia Recognition Ceremony held on 22 June.

After graduating from Shanghai Jiao Tong University with a degree in computer science and engineering, Mr. Hong received a Master’s Degree in computer science from Purdue University. After a career in Google, Mr. Hong initially spearheaded the development of Xiaomi’s MIUI platform, the smartphone’s operating system. He now oversees Xiaomi Finance, the firm’s financial services arms.

Mr. Hong congratulated the new graduates and noted that the EMBA-Global Asia is a very respected programme before sharing some lessons from his nine years at Xiaomi.

While the retail price of most products is usually six times the manufacturing cost, and 8 to 10 times for clothing, Xiaomi’s mark-up is typically just 10 percent. The company’s logic is to look to the bigger picture and the longer term, explained Mr. Hong. Selling at a lower price enables the company to sell more products, which further reduces material costs, creating a positive cycle.

“However, we do have a lot of arguments on the pricing part, especially when we enter some areas with traditionally very high margins,” he admitted.

Setting the price for the company’s air purifiers a few years ago was one such occasion. These products typically retail for about 3-4000 RMB and they cost about 900 RMB to produce.  “So how to price them? We thought about half the price was already good enough, [but] our CEO decided to set the price at 899 RMB,” Mr. Hong recalls.

The production team was not happy, with one member complaining that the target price was an insult to his work. Mr. Hong tried to convince the CEO to increase the price at least to 999 RMB, but the CEO told him: “We need to be disciplined at making just a small, reasonable profit on everything we do, and we need to do it religiously. I want to build trust with our customers so one day when they go to our store, they don’t need to look at the price tags, they just know they’re getting a pure product at the best price in town. Control your greed.” The discussion was over.

Over time, as sales revenues have multiplied, Mr. Hong has come to understand and appreciate the CEO’s strategy.

Xiaomi has also pursued innovative product development strategies to produce its many smart devices. Most of these products are built by the firm’s eco-system companies, explains Mr. Hong.

In 2014, the firm saw a great opportunity with smart devices, “We believed all those devices would be upgraded with connecting capabilities and they would be connected all together in the years to come. The problem was how to capture this trend.”

The company eventually decided to invest in incubation.

“We identified teams with good product engineering skills and provided all the other support,” he says. That support included providing all the start-up funds, sharing sales and marketing support, and providing supply chain support connections to allow these companies to get volume discounts very quickly.

The model has been a great success and Xiaomi now counts more than 100 companies in its eco-system. Between them, the companies are now launching almost one product every four days.

“Sometimes, it may be the right decision to step back, to take less, and do so willingly,” Mr. Hong advised the graduates. “After all, good companies make profits, but great companies win the hearts and minds.”

The HKU-Lingnan-Florida Platform Competition Conference co-organised by HKU Faculty of Business and Economics and ICGD Industrial Economics and Competition Policy Programme, Lingnan University Centre for Competition Policy and Regulation, and University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law was held on June 20 and 21, 2019. Over 90 participants from across the globe, including seasoned legal practitioners, industry professionals and academics attended the two-day conference.

Dean Hongbin Cai

Professor Hongbin Cai, Dean of HKU Faculty of Business and Economics kick-started the two-day event with a warm welcome to our international speakers and participants. He highlights the importance of fair competition amongst firms, which is instrumental to economic development. Given the topic of competition law and policy as well as anti-monopoly is increasingly relevant in China including Hong Kong, the conference is an excellent opportunity to bridge the minds of world-class academic researchers and professional practitioners to discuss these business and law disciplines.

Mr. Xuan Wang
Mr. Brent Snyder

The first keynote speaker, Mr. Xuan Wang, Principal Staff Member of Anti-monopoly Bureau, State Administration for Market Regulation, talked about the anti-monopoly scene in China and its future outlook in his keynote speech titled “Digital Platform and Competition Policy”, whereas our second keynote speaker, Mr. Brent Snyder, Chief Executive Officer from the Hong Kong Competition Commission shared his insights on the enforcement of Hong Kong’s Competition Ordinance.

Panel one: Enforcement in Multi-sided Platforms

Four panel sessions were also presented. Panel one discussed “Enforcement in Multi-sided Platforms”. Speakers include Ms. Na Dawson (Analysis Group Inc.), Dr. Youngjin Jung (Kim & Chang), Mr. Alexander Okuliar (Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe) and Mr. Sadaaki Suwazono (Japan Faire Trade Commission). The panel was moderated by Professor Wing Suen from HKU Faculty of Business and Economics and Ms. Auraellia Wang from Google.

Panel two: Mergers in the Digital Economy

Panel two explored “Mergers in the Digital Economy”. Speakers include Mr. Herbert Fung (Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore), Mr. Wayne Leach (King & Wood Mallesons), Dr. Wesley Wang (T&D Associates) and Dr. Jason Wu (Compass Lexecon). The panel was moderated by Mr. Andrew Foster from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

The third panel is titled “Big Data and AI”. Mr. John Choi (Shin & Kim), Ms. Patricia Galvan (US Federal Trade Commission) and Mr. Atsushi Yamada (Anderson Mori & Tomotsune) were speakers of the panel, and was moderated by Ms. Ruth Chen (Facebook),

Ms. Patricia Galvan
Ms. Ruth Chen

Panel four: Platforms in e-Commerce and Fintech. Ms. Karen Leung (left), Professor Chen Lin (second left), Mr. Knut Fournier (third left) and Professor Daniel Sokol (right)

The final panel focused on “Platforms in e-Commerce and Fintech”. Panel moderator Mr. Knut Fournier was joined by three speakers including Ms. Karen Leung (Uber), Professor Chen Lin (HKU Faculty of Business and Economics) and Professor Daniel Sokol (University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law).

Day two of the conference focused primarily on bridging the understanding of online platforms across academic disciplines. Conference co-organiser Professor Daniel Sokol, University of Florida Research Foundation Professor and University Term Professor from University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law began the day with a lively and interactive opening and chaired the first paper session. With four speakers, the session covered a dynamic range of research papers. Professor Kenneth Cheng from University of Florida explored optimal pricing models, Dr. Ruomeng Cui from Emory University examined the value of high-quality logistics, Dr. Sunny Huang from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology compared agency models and wholesale models, and Dr. Angela Zhang, Associate Professor from HKU Faculty of Law discussed crowd-judging.

Professor Lin Ping, conference co-organiser from Lingnan University chaired the second paper session with three speakers. Professor Hung-Hao Chang from National Taiwan University explored the impact of Airbnb on the hotel industry and its implications to antitrust enforcement. Professor Guofu Tan from University of Southern California focused on price competition in multi-sided markets and Dr. Chiara Farronato from Harvard Business School discussed the consumer protection in an online world.

In the third paper session chaired by Professor Jin Li from HKU Faculty of Business and Economics, three speakers presented their papers. Dr. Wesley Koo from INSEAD talked about platform rules and government regulations, Dr. Kelvin Kwok from HKU Faculty of Law discussed television platform competition: the TVB case and Dr. Steven Xu from HKU Faculty of Business and Economics presented his paper on online reviews.

Dr. Steven Xu

The final session chaired by conference co-orgnaniser Professor Yuk-fai Fong of HKU Faculty of Business and Economics also had three speakers. Professor Ramnath Chellappa from Emory University focused on platform preannouncement strategies, Professor Jay Choi from Michigan State University and Yonsei University reviewed competition on platform markets with ‘zero price’ products and Mr. Richard Xu, Ph.D Studence in Economics at the University of Southern California examined the impact of ad-avoidance technologies in the market for video streaming.

On both days of the conference, practitioners and academics from different sectors and multi-disciplines alike engaged in fruitful, dynamic and thought-provoking discussions in the field of online platforms and competition analysis.

We would like to extend our thanks to the following organisations and companies for sponsoring the conference:

Analysis Group Inc.
Compass Lexecon
Kim & Chang
King & Wood Mallesons
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
Shin & Kim
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
T&D Associates
University of Florida Fredic G. Levin College of Law

The Faculty of Business and Economics has successfully organised its first PhD Recruitment Camp from 30 April to 2 May 2019. We are delighted that 51 high-calibre participants with diverse academic background coming from China, USA, Australia and Singapore, have joined the event to learn more about our PhD programme.

To kick off the event, Professor Hongbin Cai, Dean of Faculty of Business and Economics, gave his welcome speech to the prospective students at the opening ceremony. Participants then took part in the three-day programme filled with a series of interactive activities including welcome dinner, thematic talks, campus tour, sample lectures, workshops, student and alumni sharing and individual assessment. Through these engaging and informative sessions, participants have experienced our vibrant research community and explored their passion in pursuing a PhD programme in our Faculty.

We would also like to express our gratitude to our faculty members and PhD students, for their support and hard work to make the camp a successful event.

At a time when nine out of 10 start-ups fail, it is increasingly important to identify the actions and behaviours that are most likely to lead to successful entrepreneurship.

Recently awarded the Ian Davies Professorship in Ethics, Professor Simon S.K. LAM has been conducting research into ethical leadership and entrepreneurship as well as teaching the subject for many years. He believes that the study of business ethics is crucial to understanding what lies behind the poor management decisions that often result in company failures. His research has shown that ethical behaviour is a key foundation stone for a successful business. Ethical behaviour leads to customer buy-in, resulting in higher sales and more profits, stronger employee loyalty, an increase in the company’s appeal as an employer, enhanced appeal to investors who know their money will be wisely spent, and a stronger company reputation.

There is a Chinese saying that goes: “become rich, then be a paragon of virtue (發財立品)”. Professor Lam, however, thinks the opposite. “My research provides strong and clear evidence showing that the ethical behaviour of entrepreneurs can bring substantial and significant benefits to their companies. Start-ups will have a higher survival rate when the management philosophy of the founders is based on ethical practices and behaviour,” he says.

Professor Lam has published 17 A-grade management journal papers in his research areas as well as a best-selling book, “Entrepreneurial Quotient”, published in 2018. “Having conducted years of in-depth research of these cases, I have created a highly practical ‘Entrepreneurial Quotient’ system which has become a pocket guide manual that readers can carry with them for reference on their entrepreneurial journey,” he explains.

Professor Lam is Professor of Management at FBE, as well as Director of the Centre of Asian Entrepreneurship and Business Values, and Head of the Faculty’s Management and Strategy Area. He is also a senior editor of the Asia Pacific Journal of Management.

The Ian Davies Professorship in Ethics espouses the qualities of integrity, the spirit and principles of ethics and the sharing of knowledge gained for the betterment of society.

For centuries, China had a strong economy and a vibrant civilization, yet it was overtaken by Europe in the 18th century. The possible causes of China’s decline during this period have been the focus of Professor James K.S. KUNG’s work.

Professor Kung of HKU’s Faculty of Business and Economics was recently awarded the Sein and Isaac Souede Professorship in support of his academic and research activities in the economic history of China, its institutions and its political economy of development. His research helps generate insights into understanding Chinese society today. His recent research examines the origins of the country’s meritocratic civil exam system and its long-term effects on human capital development, as well as political exchanges and corruption in contemporary China.

He finds that China’s civil exam system and the prestige and higher earnings of those who succeeded in it probably deeply inspired the Confucian culture of greatly valuing education. As a descendant of the Kungs from Suzhou where nine jinshis (進士) were produced in the Ming-Qing period with his family surname, Professor Kung said “I would surely be strongly motivated to sit for the keju exam and probably would stand a fair chance — compared to the extremely low 0.016% for those with no forebears in the family — of achieving some level of exam qualifications if I had lived in late imperial times.”

His research has also shown how China’s political institutions and policies can influence the economy, and how relying on regional officials to drive growth can result in rampant corruption. He studied data on over a million land transactions between 2004 and 2016 where local government was the sole seller, and found that firms associated with members of China’s supreme political elites — the Politburo — obtained a price discount compared to those without the same connections. The provincial party officials who provided the discount to these “princeling” firms were subsequently more likely to get promotions. However, since President Xi Jinping launched his anti-graft campaign, the number of fraudulent land dealings has significantly dropped.

Professor Kung’s research emphasises the importance of causal relationships between events and is based on intensive data collection from archives coupled with the latest econometric techniques for assessing causation. “What we hope to have demonstrated, as empirical economists, is the importance of asking the right question in the right setting, and of coming up with a novel design of research methodology, both of which determine what kind of data would be required for conducting the analysis,” he explains.

“Sometimes, it may take years to assemble enough data to enable us to conduct a meaningful analysis,” says Professor Kung. “You may say that the kind of work that we do is analogous to what investigative journalists typically do, except we go beyond sheer case studies to demonstrate causal relationships as well.”

The Sein and Isaac Souede Professorship in Economic History supports fact-based thought leadership that allows new knowledge to be freely shared and give new insights into understanding society.