Yanbo Wang
Prof. Yanbo Wang
管理及商业策略
Associate Director, Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Associate Professor

3917 0020

KK 1107

Academic & Professional Qualification
  • Ph.D. MIT Sloan
  • B.A. Peking University
Biography

Yanbo Wang is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Innovation at the University of Hong Kong. He conducts research on technology-based entrepreneurship, with a particular focus on the impact of institutions on startup firms’ strategic choices, organizational forms and financial performance. His current projects map the entrepreneurial landscape in China and examine the design and effect of the country’s state innovation subsidy programs.

Dr. Wang has published in peer-reviewed academic journals such as Management Science, Research Policy, Strategic Management Journal and Administrative Science Quarterly. He serves on the editorial board of Administrative Science Quarterly and Strategic Management Journal.

Dr. Wang received BA in international relations from Peking University and Ph.D. in Management from MIT. Prior to HKU, he has taught at Boston University, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business and the National University of Singapore, where he served as a doctoral program director in strategy and policy.

Teaching
  • International Entrepreneurship for BBAs and MBAs (BU)
  • Business Model Innovation for MBAs (CKGSB)
  • Technological Innovation for BBAs (NUS)
  • International Strategy for PhDs (NUS)
  • Capstone Course for MGMs (HKU)
Research Interest
  • Technological Change
  • Business Model Innovation
  • Entrepreneurship
Selected Publications
  • “Has China’s Young Thousand Talents program been successful in recruiting and nurturing top-caliber scientists?” (with Dongbo Shi and Weichen Liu), Science, Volume 379 Issue 6627, January 2023, pp. 62-65.
  • “Good to Go First? Position Effects in Expert Evaluation of Early-Stage Ventures” (with Jiang Bian, Jason Greenberg and Jizhen Li), Management Science, Volume 68 Issue 1, January 2022, pp. 300-315.
  • “Fraud and Innovation” (with Toby Stuart and Jizhen Li), Administrative Science Quarterly, Volume 66 Issue 2, June 2021, pp. 267-297.
  • “Firm Performance and State Innovation Funding: Evidence from China’s Innofund Program” (with Jizhen Li and Jeffrey L. Furman), Research Policy, Volume 46 Issue 6, July 2017, pp. 1142-1161.
  • “Social Influence in Career Choice: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment on Entrepreneurial Mentorship” (with Charles Eesley), Research Policy, Volume 46 Issue 3, April 2017, pp. 636-650.
  • “Who Cooks the Books in China, and Does It Pay? Evidence from Private, High-technology Firms” (with Toby Stuart), Strategic Management Journal, Volume 37 Issue 13, December 2016, pp. 2658-2676.
  • “Bringing the Stages Back in: Social Network Ties and Start-up firms’ Access to Venture Capital in China”, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Volume 10 Issue 3, September 2016, pp. 300-317.
  • “Matthew: Effect or Fable?” (with Pierre Azoulay and Toby Stuart), Management Science, Volume 60 Issue 1, January 2014, pp. 92-109.
Service to the University/ Community

Dr. Wang has acted as a reviewer for 15 journals, including AMJ, MS, OS, and IEEE TEM. He is an editorial board member of ASQ and SMJ and serves as an external PhD examiner for the National University of Singapore. He is also an executive board member of Asian Innovation and Entrepreneurship Association (AIEA).

Recent Publications
港大经管学院就人才招聘计划的成效及影响进行研究

国际知名权威学术期刊《科学》最近发布一篇由港大经管学院王砚波博士及上海交通大学史冬波博士合着的研究文章,题为「中国『青年千人计划』是否成功招募及培养顶尖科学家」。文章研究中国「千人计划」中的「青年千人计划」,在招募和培养顶尖科学家方面的成效。

Good to Go First? Position Effects in Expert Evaluation of Early-Stage Ventures

There is often considerable anxiety and conflicting advice concerning the benefits of presenting/being evaluated first. We thus investigate how expert evaluators vary in their evaluations of entrepreneurial proposals based upon the order in which they are evaluated. Our research setting is a premiere innovation fund competition in Beijing, China, where the prize money at stake is economically meaningful, and evaluators are quasi-randomly assigned to evaluate written grant proposals without the possibility of peer influence. This enables us to credibly recover a causal position effect. We also theorize and test how heterogeneity in evaluators’ prior (context-specific) judging experience moderates position effects. Overall, we find that a proposal evaluated first requires total assets in the top 10th percentile to merely equal the evaluation of a proposal in the bottom 10th percentile that is not evaluated first. Firm and evaluator fixed-effects models yield consistent findings. We consider evaluation design elements that may mollify these position effects in the discussion section.

诈骗与创新

我们的研究发现有诈骗行为的公司与作风诚实正当的公司在资源分配方面迥异不同。以诈骗方式获取的资源倾向被视为不劳而获的收益,因此较少会用于投资具生产效益的活动,例如招聘人才。我们假设作风诚实正当的公司与有诈骗行为的公司会投资不同类别的创新发明:作风诚实正当的公司追求重要的技术性发明;而有诈骗行为的公司则倾向进行低价值型的投资,且避免投资具挑战性的机会,着重外观型专利的申请多于实际性发明专利的申请。我们运用跨时间段的数据验证上述假设。我们追踪了467间中国高科技公司的人才招聘及专利申请活动,而这些公司都申请了国家创新基金资助。透过比较每间公司在同一财政年度的两套财务报表,我们找出诈骗的端倪。纵使法律上要求两套财务报表必须相同,但超过一半的财务报表存在差异,而这些差异均有利于该公司。我们发现相对于作风诚实正当的公司,有诈骗行为的公司更加可能获得国家的创新基金补助,但他们很少在获得补助后招聘技术人材或进行实质性的研发活动。