Crowdfunding—collecting small donations from a large number of investors—is an increasingly popular way of raising capital, particularly for creative projects. With the rise of crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, entrepreneurs and small businesses have secured billions of dollars to develop their innovative ideas. However, we still know ... Read More

Twitter has almost 200 million users. Facebook’s customer base is even bigger, approaching 3 billion. Yet despite the staggering popularity of social media applications, it remains unclear exactly why and how people use this technology. Taking a holistic view of social media use, HKUST’s Professor Yan Xu and co-researchers developed a pioneering theory-based ... Read More

A few years ago, a data breach compromised the information of more than 100 million Target customers and cost the company US$148 million. Target had outsourced its security to a managed security service (MSS) provider called FireEye, but then failed to take action after FireEye alerted it to the breach. In a timely study, HKUST professors Kai-Lung Hui and ... Read More

Mean-variance analysis is a tool used to make investment decisions by weighing risk (or variance) against expected returns. It helps investors determine how much risk they are willing to accept in exchange for bigger (or smaller) rewards. In 1952, to help risk-averse investors identify acceptable risk and returns on assets, Harry Markowitz proposed the mean ... Read More

Before any new product is launched, it must be tested. As customer reviews flow in, companies may find that they receive more than they bargained for. Customers may use a product in ways never anticipated by the brand, discovering novel benefits. How should brands harness the power of such serendipity? This was the question asked by HKUST professors J ... Read More

The Internet has had a huge impact on society over the past few decades, and the ever-increasing access to affordable, high-speed connectivity has led to both positive and negative outcomes. One important social aspect of this widely used technology is children becoming addicted to online gaming, social media, web browsing, and so on. Taking into account ... Read More

Listing on a U.S. stock exchange can be good for business, but U.S.-listed foreign firms pay a big price for deliberately misleading investors, according to a 2020 study by Ge, Matsumoto, Wang, and Zhang. . The authors compared the responses of U.S. stock markets to accounting irregularities—intentionally misstated financial information—disclosed by U.S ... Read More

Social media platforms enable millions of people worldwide to share stories, images, and other content. However, sharing the private information of others (peers) may have unintended and far-reaching consequences, both positive and negative. HKUST professors Kai-Lung Hui and Hong Xuand their co-researcher set out to determine how the benefits of peer ... Read More

In today’s digital era, online research plays a key part in the decision to buy a particular product or brand. The enormous amount of product information instantly available to customers on the Internet has changed the way they choose between similar offerings. Shedding light on this complex process, Assistant Professor Song Lin of HKUST’s Department of ... Read More

Selling directly to customers represents an opportunity for suppliers, but it can threaten retailers’ profits. This is known as supplier encroachment, and it occurs across a range of industries. In an innovative study, HKUST’s Professor Ying-Ju Chen and co-researchers modeled scenarios in which retailers can optimize the outcomes of supplier encroachment ... Read More