Rebate, or money that is returned to the consumer after they have paid for goods or services, is a popular form of sales promotion, with studies showing that 50% of retailers and 48% of manufacturers use rebates as part of their customer loyalty programmes. For example, USD8 billion worth of rebates were issued in the U.S. in 2010. Companies make use of ... Read More

For retailers seeking to stand out in the cutthroat world of e-commerce, discounts can offer a powerful advertising tool. Across the Web, businesses compete for customers’ attention by announcing the most exclusive deals and hottest “flash” sales. However, big discounts do not always translate into big profits. According to HKUST professors Kai-Lung Hui and ... Read More

The authors in this study develop a theoretical framework in which the disclosure of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities is viewed as an organizational response to institutional complexity which exists between the demands of the central government and provincial governments in China. The study aims at revealing how firms with institutional ... Read More

Downward substitution is common in many industries and occurs in supply chain management when a firm used a higher value item to satisfy the demand of a lower value item that is out of stock. This type of substitution is driven by the supplier in order to increase customer service quality and / or revenue. For example, a hotel might choose to fill its ... Read More

Traditionally, firms had to rely mainly on their employees to solve any problems. However, with the increased popularity of crowd-based ideation contests, in which “seekers” engage “solvers” to come up with solutions to creativity and innovation-related problems, this is no longer the case. Various studies show that outside solvers are capable of developing ... Read More

Sadly, underprivileged groups in less developed countries (LDCs) lack access to proper medical care and accurate medical information, resulting in high rates of mortality. As part of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which look to reduce maternal, infant, and child mortality, among other aims, information and communication ... Read More

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