Cumulative innovation—building on existing ideas to create new innovations—is key to technological and economic development. Unsurprisingly, the process is geographically localized: innovations tend to be developed by innovators located nearer to their predecessors. Yet research has thus far failed to account for the strengthening of this effect in recent ... Read More

User reviews are an essential source of information for consumers, exerting a considerable influence on purchase decisions. In general, reviews rated as more helpful exert a greater influence downstream. But how do the linguistic characteristics of a review affect its helpfulness? Thanks to HKUST’s Sang Kyu Park and two colleagues, marketers now have fresh ... Read More

Multinational banks (MNBs) play a critical role in promoting international business and maintaining the stability of the global financial system. Offering policy implications for regulators worldwide, Tai-Yuan Chen and Mingyi Hung of HKUST, working with a colleague, show how the reporting transparency of MNBs (which operate extensively across borders) is ... Read More

For business-to-business (B2B) service providers, securing loyal customers—a critical asset for any firm—remains challenging. This is especially true for B2B logistics, a major sector of the U.S. economy, which has experienced major stress amid de-globalization, COVID-19, and the move to online marketplaces. In a timely study responding to the affordances of ... Read More

In competitive societies, educational products represent significant purchase decisions for families. As noted by HKUST’s Qihui Chen and her coauthors, “Parents’ preferences when purchasing educational products for their children are primarily shaped by their values, beliefs, and observations of society.” Their research shows that the choice between ... Read More

Creativity and morality are two key attributes that organizations demand of their employees, and stakeholders of organizations. Yet under certain circumstances, these attributes may inhibit each other. In a study with far-reaching implications for business, education, and society, John Coombes of HKUST and colleagues from PolyU explore ways of tailoring ... Read More

Massive amounts of unstructured textual data, such as large volumes of online consumer reviews, “provide an unprecedented opportunity for firms to understand consumer word-of-mouth, forecast product sales, and monitor product defects,” say HKUST’s Yi Yang and a colleague. Topic modeling is a popular textual analysis technique to analyze such data. However ... Read More

When it comes to identifying winning investments, data-driven methods may outperform both economic models and professional analysts, according to HKUST’s Yang Ha (Tony) Cho and colleagues. They sought to “push the frontier of earnings prediction” by “applying machine learning methods to a large set of detailed financial data” for the first time. Earnings are ... Read More

Fast-fashion brands are often accused of copying the designs of high-end fashion brands, thereby reducing the distinctiveness of high-end brands and eroding their brand equity. HKUST’s Zijun (June) Shi and colleagues propose a novel way to investigate whether and how fast-fashion copycats affect high-end brand equity. Despite the enormous size of the fashion ... Read More

Does equality really lead to happiness in information systems development (ISD) teams? To date, research on leadership in ISD teams has assumed that all developers are treated equally by their team leader, ignoring the power of differentiated leader–member exchange (LMX) to enhance team and project outcomes. Filling this important research gap, James Y. L ... Read More