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.’

從會議室到教室

港大經管學院首席講師李乘雨先生是今年獲頒大學教育資助委員會教學獎的三位獲獎者之一。李先生對教學有著過人的熱誠，在香港大學服務僅五年，已經獲大學頒發數項卓越教學獎。在手執教鞭之前，李先生曾是名任職投資銀行的金融才俊。然而，他女兒的出生成為了他人生的轉捩點。 「當我還是名金融從業員時，我時常要代表公司出國洽商。頻繁的商務旅行迫使我和女兒每月分隔超過一週的時間。如果情況持續下去，到她20歲時，我將會累計失去和她相處共5年的寶貴時光，而我並不願意付出如此沉重的代價。」再加上李先生一直希望能為世界產生有意義的影響，故他最終毅然放棄投資銀行的高薪厚職，轉為在大學作育英才。

音樂會般的講課

李先生的講課生動有趣，而且內容與時並進。熱愛和學生在課堂上互動的他深受大家愛戴。談及如可能提升教育質量，李先生認為在眾多通訊媒介中，故事形式的敘事有著無與倫比的魔力。一個通訊媒介的價值在於它能否令接收信息的人記住媒介傳遞的內容，而出色的故事能使讀者牢牢記住當中的人物和劇情，效果遠勝一般的電子簡報。以TED演講為例，雖然演講的內容往往涉及大量深奧的專業知識，但由於講者能有效地把演講的內容包裝成一個有起承轉合的故事，使TED演講的品牌在國際間享負盛名。

李先生指出，商業案例和新聞時事本身就是一個個獨立的故事，故適當地在講課中舉例論證能有效地吸引學生。在李先生眼中講課和演奏爵士樂同出一轍：「在爵士樂音樂會中，演奏者不時會進行即興的演出。我在授課的時候，不時會利用熱點新聞補充我曾列舉過的商業案例。我亦非常鼓勵同學在課堂上分享自己的所見所聞以作例證，藉此一同分析教科書的理論。這樣做能使我的課堂有連貫性之餘充滿驚喜，就像看連續劇一樣。」

李先生在訪談中謙遜地指出港大的教職員每一個對教育都充滿熱誠，自己只是碰巧被學生記住。

教育「新常態」

李先生察覺到新冠肺炎大流行催生了很多有利教育的嶄新科技。比如虛擬實境 (VR) 技術使學生無需出門便能參與實地考察。但鑑於傳授商學知識以課堂理論為主，故科技對商學教育而言並非最為重要。李先生指出，只要老師能夠有效地在課堂上吸引學生，即使手上只有最傳統的教學工具，也能營造絕佳的教學氛圍。

回顧自己在上個學期於線上授課的經驗，李先生認為最大的挑戰是在有限的螢幕空間內記住每一個學生。在大部分的同學都選擇屏蔽自己的樣貌的情況下，這項任務可謂十分艱鉅。李先生相信，在新常態下，教職員必須多走一步才能與學生進行有意義的互動。「每當有同學回答，或提出新問題時，我會馬上要求該同學報上名來。我可能會忘記他的名字，故每隔一段時間我便會召喚他，甚至刻意叫錯他的名字，讓他多發言也好讓我記住他。」李先生相信這樣做能營造一個輕鬆的課堂氛圍，鼓勵同學參與課堂討論。

此外，李先生亦意識到科技的發展正在為教育界帶來革命。早在疫情開始之前，港大師生已一直進行網上授課，更令學生今後更珍惜課堂學習的機會。由於線上學習在這場疫症中被廣泛應用，即使日後新冠肺炎的疫苗問世，李先生相信線上學習將會在我們的教育系統上永佔一席位。然而，只有時間才能證明線上學習和課堂學習之間的平衡將如何發展。

求學不只求分數

面談期間，我們被李先生的豐富的敬師卡收藏所吸引。 「來自學生的這些感謝卡和電郵，我全部都珍而重之。」在香港大學任教五年，李先生誇讚港大學生有著無限潛能，但最令他難忘的學生不是他們優異的成績，而是克服逆境的勇氣。

對李先生而言，在單一課程中取得好的成績僅需要在學期內維持有紀律的生活和進行良好的時間管理。但要克服人生逆境，卻需要成熟的心智丶恆久的毅力丶和頑強的鬥志。門下學生逆境自強的故事，是李先生鞭策自己提升教育素質的原動力。

香港科技人才屈指可數？

縱使李先生對港大同學的才能予以認可，但坊間普偏認為香港的創科人才寥寥無幾，企業也缺乏創意和動力。李先生指出，五六十年前日本的年輕人被批評缺乏創意和動力；四十年前韓國的年輕人也被這樣批評；然後二十年前中國的年輕人亦如是。但事實勝於雄辯，這三個國家的創新科技發展水平都是世界頂尖一流的。至於香港的起步雖然較遲，但絕非原地踏步。李先生觀測到香港的高等教育學府在這些年間非常努力地和世界各地的科研機構合作交流，而且配合國家的大灣區發展計劃，李先生對香港的未來充滿信心。

任重而道遠獲頒教資會教學獎並沒有使李先生在教育的路上停步，反而更致力於推陳出新。他計劃在未來三年內開發一個以商業道德和領導管理為主題的線上資料庫，為亞洲的商界翹楚提供一個進行知識交流和個案分享的平台。李先生認為現存有關商業倫理道德和領導管理的案例大多發生在西方國家，無論是企業文化丶社會風氣丶以及法制框架，都和東方不盡相同。故此有必要儲備更多亞洲相關的案例讓東方商業社會作為參考。建立一個全新的教育項目並非一朝一夕，然而李先生對於計劃的實踐仍然充滿信心。

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.