The decision to disclose product information to potential customers is something that must be considered by sellers. Common methods that are used to present quality information include advertisements, free samples, product labels, and so on. Alternatively, for various reasons, a seller might choose to reduce their investment in advertising or limit certain ... Read More

Sustainability is one of the most pressing concerns of our time. The vision of a sustainable world—capable of meeting the needs of both current and future generations—is gaining ever more traction with governments and societies across the globe. Business operations have become a major target for sustainable development, according to Hongtao Zhang of HKUST ... Read More

In the past few years, a number of digital and media platforms, e.g., YouTube and Spotify, have begun introducing premium services which let paid subscribers see fewer or no adverts. Such a practice seems to be a classic case of second-degree price discrimination through ‘versioning’, which allows consumers to self-select different models of the same product ... Read More

Higher-quality accounting information results in better resource allocation within industries, Yue Zheng from HKUST and her coauthors have established. Access to accurate accounting data reduces “friction” in information flows, providing external parties with a complete picture of productivity that can improve investment decisions. Productivity measures ... Read More

In the global supply chain, retailers commonly source manufacturers through “middlemen.” Unfortunately, these intermediaries often collude with unethical manufacturers to collect rebates that are “hidden” from retailers. Due to the covert operations involved, this problem has received very little attention. In instrumental new work, Ying-Ju Chen from HKUST ... Read More

Information technology (IT) business-alignment is a key component of managing data and information within the context of business operations. However, achieving this can be quite difficult for many businesses due to being time-consuming and costly. As this alignment process is dynamic in nature, one approach can be to align IT with a business during the ... Read More

Since the market reform of 1978, China has seen phenomenal economic growth; however, this has come at the cost of significant environmental damage and rising social inequality. As such, the 2004 campaign of “Building a Harmonious Socialist Society” has become a key party resolution and government objective. Ultimately, China places maintaining social ... Read More

Movies are full of highs and lows, plot twists, and bursts of action and dialogue. Understanding how viewers respond to such lively and fluctuating content in real time is challenging. In recent work, HKUST’s Wenbo Wang and colleagues developed a novel construct, “moment-to-moment synchronicity” (MTMS), to capture viewers’ engagement with dynamic movie ... Read More

“What is your greatest weakness?” Routinely, professional and personal situations require us to disclose negative information about ourselves, but in doing so, we run the risk of damaging how others view us. In a series of five unique studies, HKUST’s Professor Bradford Bitterly and his colleague examined whether humor can make us seem more likable and ... Read More

The list of analyst research outputs has been expanding over the past decades, and one prominent analyst research output that has become increasingly important is capital expenditure (capex) forecasts. Yet we know little about the effects of capex forecasts, in particular, whether the information conveyed in capex forecasts is useful to investors, and more ... Read More