Shivang Singh, a year 4 BBA(IBGM) student, has been recognised as “Highly Commended Entrant” by The Global Undergraduate Awards (UA) for his research paper “Investigating the business ethics of bike-sharing companies”.

Every year, UA coordinates an awards programme for penultimate and final year undergraduate students, as well as students who have graduated within the programme year. Entrants can submit their work to one of our 25 categories, which represent a broad range of academic disciplines.

Shivang’s work was considered to be among the top 10% of academic coursework submitted globally in the “Business” category. His study draws on the evolution of the peer-to-peer based sharing economy and uncovers the non-compliance of bike-sharing companies with ethical conduct standards.

“I am deeply grateful to Mr. David Bishop for expanding my knowledge in business ethics, corporate governance and corporate social responsible. After further revision, I aspire to get it published in an academic journal,” said Shivang.

About The Global Undergraduate Awards

The Global Undergraduate Awards is the world’s leading academic awards programme which recognises top undergraduate work, shares this work with a global audience and connects students across cultures and disciplines.

Themed with ‘The Future of Business Education in the U.S. and China’, the Stanford China Economic Forum 2020 was held online on October 16 (Friday). Three Deans from the world-leading Business Schools were invited to the event to share their insights, including Professor Hongbin Cai, Dean of HKU Business School, Professor Ann Harrison, The Bank of America Dean of Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, together with Jonathan Levin, The Philip H. Knight Professor and Dean of the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.

As the world begins to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, these challenging times call for more dialogue and collaborations across public health, education, government and business. The Stanford China Economic Forum aims at gathering business experts and scholars to promote dialogue, an open exchange of ideas, and collaboration across institutes, districts and countries. During the Forum, the Deans discussed the upcoming teaching and learning trends under various challenges brought by the pandemic, the rising tensions between China and US and the social movements. The ways on how to adapt and respond to all external factors that affect Education, as well as providing the best learning environment amidst major global incidents were the key focuses of the Forum.

A coin has two sides; and crisis always creates opportunities. Professor Hongbin Cai, Dean of HKU Business School believes that the wide use of remote teaching technologies during this challenging period will not be able to replace the tradition face-to-face teaching, however, will certainly add value to the future mode of teaching even after the pandemic. ‘Some of the teaching methods and technologies we are using now offer flexibilities to students and provide more effective ways to keep the class together,’ He said.

‘The current hybrid mode adopted allows students to participate in class despite the limitation of quarantine policies, travel restrictions or tight schedules for working students. In lectures with large group of students, technology also helps to encourage interaction between students and the lecturer. Students could raise their questions though the chatroom and get their queries settled.’  

Professor Cai also appreciated the efforts by Stanford University for organising this Forum during his wrap-up speech. ‘This is a very good opportunity for facilitating the collaboration between academics and students, across China and the US. As Hong Kong is a truly international place and HKU is a truly international university, I am looking forward to building a stronger collaboration across the Pacific Ocean. It is vital for us to build a stronger community to house people from different backgrounds sharing different views, and to mutually respect each other.’

从会议室到教室

港大经管学院首席讲师李乘雨先生是今年获颁大学教育资助委员会教学奖的三位获奖者之一。李先生对教学有着过人的热诚，在香港大学服务仅五年，已经获大学颁发数项卓越教学奖。在手执教鞭之前，李先生曾是名任职投资银行的金融才俊。然而，他女儿的出生成为了他人生的转捩点。 「当我还是名金融从业员时，我时常要代表公司出国洽商。频繁的商务旅行迫使我和女儿每月分隔超过一周的时间。如果情况持续下去，到她20岁时，我将会累计失去和她相处共5年的宝贵时光，而我并不愿意付出如此沉重的代价。」再加上李先生一直希望能为世界产生有意义的影响，故他最终毅然放弃投资银行的高薪厚职，转为在大学作育英才。

音乐会般的讲课

李先生的讲课生动有趣，而且内容与时并进。热爱和学生在课堂上互动的他深受大家爱戴。谈及如可能提升教育质量，李先生认为在众多通讯媒介中，故事形式的叙事有着无与伦比的魔力。一个通讯媒介的价值在于它能否令接收信息的人记住媒介传递的内容，而出色的故事能使读者牢牢记住当中的人物和剧情，效果远胜一般的电子简报。以TED演讲为例，虽然演讲的内容往往涉及大量深奥的专业知识，但由于讲者能有效地把演讲的内容包装成一个有起承转合的故事，使TED演讲的品牌在国际间享负盛名。

李先生指出，商业案例和新闻时事本身就是一个个独立的故事，故适当地在讲课中举例论证能有效地吸引学生。在李先生眼中讲课和演奏爵士乐同出一辙：「在爵士乐音乐会中，演奏者不时会进行即兴的演出。我在授课的时候，不时会利用热点新闻补充我曾列举过的商业案例。我亦非常鼓励同学在课堂上分享自己的所见所闻以作例证，借此一同分析教科书的理论。这样做能使我的课堂有连贯性之余充满惊喜，就像看连续剧一样。」

李先生在访谈中谦逊地指出港大的教职员每一个对教育都充满热诚，自己只是碰巧被学生记住。

教育「新常态」

李先生察觉到新冠肺炎大流行催生了很多有利教育的崭新科技。比如虚拟实境 (VR) 技术使学生无需出门便能参与实地考察。但鉴于传授商学知识以课堂理论为主，故科技对商学教育而言并非最为重要。李先生指出，只要老师能够有效地在课堂上吸引学生，即使手上只有最传统的教学工具，也能营造绝佳的教学氛围。

回顾自己在上个学期于线上授课的经验，李先生认为最大的挑战是在有限的萤幕空间内记住每一个学生。在大部分的同学都选择屏蔽自己的样貌的情况下，这项任务可谓十分艰巨。李先生相信，在新常态下，教职员必须多走一步才能与学生进行有意义的互动。 「每当有同学回答，或提出新问题时，我会马上要求该同学报上名来。我可能会忘记他的名字，故每隔一段时间我便会召唤他，甚至刻意叫错他的名字，让他多发言也好让我记住他。」李先生相信这样做能营造一个轻松的课堂氛围，鼓励同学参与课堂讨论。

此外，李先生亦意识到科技的发展正在为教育界带来革命。早在疫情开始之前，港大师生已一直进行网上授课，更令学生今后更珍惜课堂学习的机会。由于线上学习在这场疫症中被广泛应用，即使日后新冠肺炎的疫苗问世，李先生相信线上学习将会在我们的教育系统上永占一席位。然而，只有时间才能证明线上学习和课堂学习之间的平衡将如何发展。

求学不只求分数

面谈期间，我们被李先生的丰富的敬师卡收藏所吸引。 「来自学生的这些感谢卡和电邮，我全部都珍而重之。」在香港大学任教五年，李先生夸赞港大学生有着无限潜能，但最令他难忘的学生不是他们优异的成绩，而是克服逆境的勇气。

对李先生而言，在单一课程中取得好的成绩仅需要在学期内维持有纪律的生活和进行良好的时间管理。但要克服人生逆境，却需要成熟的心智丶恒久的毅力丶和顽强的斗志。门下学生逆境自强的故事，是李先生鞭策自己提升教育素质的原动力。

香港科技人才屈指可数？

纵使李先生对港大同学的才能予以认可，但坊间普偏认为香港的创科人才寥寥无几，企业也缺乏创意和动力。李先生指出，五六十年前日本的年轻人被批评缺乏创意和动力；四十年前韩国的年轻人也被这样批评；然后二十年前中国的年轻人亦如是。但事实胜于雄辩，这三个国家的创新科技发展水平都是世界顶尖一流的。至于香港的起步虽然较迟，但绝非原地踏步。李先生观测到香港的高等教育学府在这些年间非常努力地和世界各地的科研机构合作交流，而且配合国家的大湾区发展计划，李先生对香港的未来充满信心。

任重而道远获颁教资会教学奖并没有使李先生在教育的路上停步，反而更致力于推陈出新。他计划在未来三年内开发一个以商业道德和领导管理为主题的线上资料库，为亚洲的商界翘楚提供一个进行知识交流和个案分享的平台。李先生认为现存有关商业伦理道德和领导管理的案例大多发生在西方国家，无论是企业文化丶社会风气丶以及法制框架，都和东方不尽相同。故此有必要储备更多亚洲相关的案例让东方商业社会作为参考。建立一个全新的教育项目并非一朝一夕，然而李先生对于计划的实践仍然充满信心。

A team of two students from HKU Business School won the top 10 in World Asian Case Competition 2020. Themed on “Thriving business in the Asian region”, the competition requires participants to research on a self-picked business in the Asian region, featuring the business’s turning points, key success factors, future challenges and solutions, and takeaway lessons of the case. It provides participants with insights into a wide variety of companies in different industries in Asia, and enables them to sharpen their skills that will be useful for future case competition.

World Asian Case Competition (WACC) is an annual international case competition organised by the Academy of Asian Business. It was divided into three parts, namely (i) short proposal in around 400 words, (ii) final proposal in around 10,000 words, and (iii) final presentation for around 15 minutes.

Advisor:

Dr. Matthias BUEHLMAIER, BBA (IBGM) Programme Director, The University of Hong Kong

Team Member:

Mr. HO Wai Yiu Ryan, BBA(IBGM), Year 4
Mr. CHAN Chau Yin, BBA(Law)&LLB, Year 3
(This team comprises 1 more team member from other HKU faculty.)

Students sharing:

Through the studying of the fast-emerging markets and business in Asia, not only did we practise the skills that we learned, we also gained a more realistic and thorough understanding of different business opportunities in the vast Asian market. During the competition, we were able to sharpen our research skills and do an in-depth case study on Asian business model, which provided an opportunity for us to orientate ourselves in the business world. In a nutshell, the competition helped us to paint a broader and more colourful picture of the Asian market. We are grateful for having such valuable opportunity.

During times of economic uncertainty, what can you do to make your startup stand out in a crowd of competitors so that you can secure funding from investors?

On Saturday, October 10, 2020, more than 20 alumni entrepreneurs from various industries and business backgrounds attended the HKU Business School Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum to discuss how startup founders can leverage investors to scale up their business and unlock success.
Mr. Vincent Chan, Senior Managing Director and Head of Asia of Samena Capital and Mr. K.O. Chia, Director of Grace Financial were invited to share their insights on how to venture on a journey to being an effective entrepreneur, and hopefully the founder of the next unicorn.

They both emphasized that one of the critical success factors is people. Mr. Chan suggested that it is important to build a strong team who trust each other, and love working together as investors will not only consider your product, but also the structure and dynamics of your team. Mr. Chia also pointed out that the success of startup lies in its ability to uphold the core of your business and leverage on technology.

At the forum, alumni treasured the opportunity to network with speakers. Ms. Yina Chan (BBA (Acc&Fin) 2015), Co-Founder of Bamboo Network, learned that the true growth of a startup comes from within the team who is able to collaboratively turn a great idea into a profitable business, whereas the exponential growth comes from investors who usually look beyond monetary terms, such as the quality of the founding team and customer-engagement model. Mr. Harris Cheng (BEcon&Fin 2017), Co-Founder and CEO of Freehunter was thrilled to reconnect with Mr. K.O. Chia, who inspired him to pursue his startup dream when he was a year-3 student struggling with his career path.

We believe Hong Kong people have what it takes to become an entrepreneur and innovator – resilience, industriousness and discipline. To realise these potentials, HKU Business School is developing an entrepreneurial ecosystem that helps support our students and alumni and fuel our economic growth.