Faculty Research

Chinese social media platform Weibo’s rise and fall, twice within a decade, offers lessons on how to operate in a turbulent market. CEIBS Associate Professor of Management Terence Tsai, who wrote a case about the company, offers advice to Weibo on the way forward. He also has lessons for other social media platforms — Chinese and Western — and other firms faced with the challenge of surviving in a volatile market.

During this keynote speech Prof Xu Bin analyses the Chinese and Czech economies in an effort to increase understanding between both sides. He was speaking during the Prague leg of CEIBS Europe Forum 2018 on September 25. Click here for speeches, media coverage, photos and more http://www.ceibs.edu/special/chinaeu15/en/index.html

CEIBS Associate Professor of International Business and Strategy Shameen Prashantham met with CEIBS MBA alumna Divya Joseph at Alibaba headquarters in Hangzhou, China. Divya joined the company via the Alibaba Global Leadership Academy in 2016 after graduating from CEIBS. Now she’s one of the people helping to drive the e-commerce giant’s international expansion.

Richard Carney gives real life examples of the issues explored in his book, Authoritarian Capitalism: Sovereign Wealth Funds and State-Owned Enterprises in East Asia and Beyond. After 1945, the liberal-democratic model of capitalism spread across the globe, ultimately prevailing over communism. Over the past two decades, a new statist-authoritarian model has begun diffusing across Asia. Rather than rejecting capitalism, authoritarian leaders harness it to uphold their rule. Based on extensive research of East Asia's largest corporations and sovereign wealth funds, this book argues that the most aggressive version of this model does not belong to China. Rather, it can be found in Malaysia and Singapore. Although these countries are small, the implications are profound because one-third of all countries in the world possess the same type of regime. With an increasing number of these authoritarian regimes establishing sovereign wealth funds, their ability to intervene in the corporate sectors of other countries is rapidly expanding.

CEIBS Professor of Economics and Finance Xu Bin points out that China’s surprising 6.9% growth in 2017 has made it clear that US President Donald Trump’s America First policy won’t hurt China as much as some may fear. An analysis of the data shows that the Chinese economy has delinked from the global one, no longer powered by external forces such as exports and inward FDI. Instead domestic consumption is the main driving force, pushed along by new technology, a growing services industry and urbanization. It also helps that China has a built-in 3S advantage of scale, scope and the newest ‘s’ factor – speed.

CEIBS Associate Dean and Professor of Economics Bala Ramasamy discusses the findings of a research study he co-authored that looks at how trade along the six corridors of China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) may be impacted by improvements in infrastructure and customs and border administration. Professor Ramasamy’s paper is titled “Market Integration in the BRI”.

Parkland Chair Professor of Strategy at CEIBS Seung Ho Park explains some of his key research findings on ASEAN Champions - strong local firms operating in the ASEAN Economic Community in Southeast Asia, which is set to become the seventh largest economy in the world. Here Professor Park discusses the factors that have enabled these high-performing firms to succeed, and in many cases to beat rival multinational firms. He also shares several examples of these firms in different countries throughout the ASEAN community. For more about Prof. Park’s research on this topic read his book, ASEAN Champions: Emerging Stalwarts in Regional Integration(http://www.ceibs.edu/node/9640). This lecture was recorded on April 11, 2017 at the 2nd CEMS Corporate Roundtable Discussion on Emerging Markets held at the CEIBS Shanghai Campus, which was hosted by the CEIBS Center for Emerging Markets Studies. The complete agenda for the event is at http://www.ceibs.edu/media/events/conference/10427. For more on the CEIBS Center for Emerging Markets Studies see http://www.iems.com/.

CEIBS Professor of Marketing Jeongwen Chiang takes us on a deep dive into China’s sharing economy. Among the topics he explores: why China’s sharing economy is among the most advanced and innovative in the world, which sharing platforms are most popular right now with Chinese millennials, and what criteria venture capital investors use to evaluate sharing economy start-ups. This lecture was recorded during a session at the CEIBS Center for Emerging Market Studies Corporate Roundtable Discussion held on April 11, 2017 at CEIBS Shanghai Campus.

Prof. Wang and his co-authors, Prof. Jarrad Harford of University of Washington and Kuo Zhang of Xiamen University, looked at a sample of US-listed multinational firms that disclose their foreign cash holdings. The findings show that the more cash a firm holds overseas, the lower shareholders value that cash. The researchers also found that firms with large cash holdings overseas tend to under-invest domestically and over-invest abroad.

Most US multinational companies park their foreign earnings in jurisdictions with favourable tax policies in order to reduce their tax bill. For example, Ireland charges 12.5 % corporation tax while in the US it’s 35 %. If a multinational wants to repatriate foreign cash back to the US they need to pay the tax difference. CEIBS Prof. Cong Wang explains this taxation problem and predicts how Trump’s administration might help solve the problem.

CEIBS Professor of Marketing Lydia Price, an American, explains how living abroad helped her grow professionally and why she is re-living her youth in China.

CEIBS Professor of Marketing Lydia Price, an American, explains what it takes to be a tiger mom in China and what this experience taught her about doing business in the most populous country in the world.

COP 22 is over, now the work begins. CEIBS Professor of Marketing Lydia Price explains why b-schools need to focus on educating environmentally and socially responsible leaders.

CEIBS Professor of Marketing Jeongwen Chiang explores China’s biggest e-commerce shopping holiday - Single’s Day. Date recorded: Nov 8, 2016

This year Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba rang up US$5 billion in sales in the first hour of its Single’s Day e-commerce event. This annual e-commerce holiday, celebrated by Chinese consumers and retailers on November 11, rivals Cyber Monday in the US in total sales volume. CEIBS Professor of Marketing Jeongwen Chiang explains why it is also profitable for international brands.

This year Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba rang up US$5 billion in sales in the first hour of its Single’s Day e-commerce event. This annual e-commerce holiday, celebrated by Chinese consumers and retailers on November 11, rivals Cyber Monday in the US in total sales volume. CEIBS Professor of Marketing Jeongwen Chiang explains the fierce rivalry between China’s e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com.

CEIBS Professor of Marketing Jeongwen Chiang explains who profits most on November 11th when Chinese consumers spend billions shopping for bargains online. Known as Single’s Day, this e-commerce holiday in China rivals Cyber Monday in the US in total sales volume.

The Chinese yuan officially became part of the IMF’s basket of currencies on October 1, 2016. CEIBS Professor of Economics and Finance Xu Bin explains what this means for the Euro.

The Chinese yuan officially became part of the IMF’s basket of currencies on October 1. In this excerpt from a previous interview in August 2015, CEIBS Professor of Economics and Finance Xu Bin explains why this is a good move not just for China but for the rest of the world.

She explains why she loves Shanghai and the field of psychology and how her research has covered everything from cross-cultural interactions on the International Space Station to the impact of familiarity on expatriate turnover.

CEIBS Prof. of Management Yu Zhang takes a look how small or start-up companies can challenge large players in the market.

“My research currently looks at the interaction between the capital market and firm strategy in terms of how capital markets influence the strategic decisions made by companies and their managers, and how it shapes the way they compete with other firms. My interest in this topic goes back to my college life. When I began college I chose finance as my major. It was a very hot major back then. I learned a lot about the newly-developed stock market in China. But later I realised that in order for the capital market to develop well, you really need to have good quality companies. And so when I went to graduate school for my PhD, I chose strategy as my major because I really want to help companies grow better. At INSEAD I often took advantage of the free subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times so that I could become well-versed in the language of business. It struck me that almost every day there was a front-page story about some big name company missing its earnings forecast and the resulting drop in its stock prices. So this led to my dissertation in which I looked at the pressure managers face to meet or beat analyst forecasts on firm earnings, and how this pressure influences companies’ strategic decisions. I published a paper on that and that’s how I got into this area of academic research. Over the last decade my co-authors and I have found that in almost all industries – whether it’s in the US or in China, developed or developing countries – the pressure to meet or beat analysts’ forecasts or earnings pressure is causing managers to engage in more short-term-oriented behaviour. That creates problems for firms to really perform well in the long-term. If you want firms to excel in the long-term, they really need to make a commitment and pursue strategic investments that might sacrifice short-term performance. But if they face pressure to deliver short-term performance in the current quarter, or current year, that’s going to be a problem for them.” ~ Yu Zhang, CEIBS Prof. of Management

“The payment market, especially mobile payment, is one of the segments in which China is actually moving much, much faster than the US market. Americans would be surprised at how deep the penetration is for WeChat pay and Alipay in China’s mobile payment business. In the US it’s very hard for you to imagine that you can use your mobile to pay for almost anything in life – taxis, shopping, movie tickets, restaurants, the list is endless. In the US, people still carry dozens of cards in their wallet or purse and they swipe these cards almost everywhere. This is why companies like Square, for example, can do very well in the US because it helps consumers do business with small and medium sized merchants who couldn’t otherwise afford payment terminals. Remember also that in the US the concentration ratio of the retailers is way higher than in the Chinese market. So this is why, for example, if you look at Apple Pay and even Google’s Android Pay, while they were very advanced technologies there’s huge opposition from the large merchants. Companies like Walmart, Target and Starbucks would rather have their own payment systems. Apple Pay is definitely not a first mover in China; it’s a sort of a late mover in the market. They have to work very hard to increase their penetration ratio of the payment terminals here. But almost all the grocery stores in China, especially in the big cities, are already occupied by the free bar scanners offered by Tencent and Ali. So there’s a long way to go.” ~ Yu Zhang, CEIBS Prof. of Management

“There has been a big boom in e-commerce and what we call the online-offline arena. But in the past half-year there has also been talk about whether the winter’s coming; a lot of companies haven’t been able to sustain their cash flows or financing and they’ve had to close their business. But there are good companies, and one of the ones I like a lot is Jing Dong (JD.com). They have been doing very well in terms of their strategic investment and commitment and have found a very unique way to compete against incumbents like Alibaba or Taobao. I think in the future whether it’s e-commerce, online or offline, it has to be the efficiency and viability of the business models. Amazon can do very well because they are extremely efficient in their operations. If you go to Amazon’s warehouses, you will see that the number of people is much fewer than in the typical Chinese e-commerce company warehouse. A lot of the work is done by the Kiva warehouse robots. Amazon is building huge warehouses in the US. These are about 10 or 20 stadiums in size. Once they reach scale they can use their own truck fleet, they’re starting to buy or lease their own air cargo fleet as well, so it’s all about efficiency, scale, scope. And that’s something that every company, whether it’s Chinese or American, has to think about. At the end of the day it’s about how efficiently you can compete in the market. It’s an efficiency driven business. On the other hand, there can be multiple types of business models. Amazon is just one successful model but not necessarily the model everyone should use. If everyone does what Amazon does, then there’s no differentiation. Even Amazon is now starting to look at whether they should have physical stores. That’s because other than efficiency, low cost and low price, retail consumers want something else – they want the real shopping experience. Online shoppers cannot replicate the traditional shopping experience. So in that sense I think in the future there will be different kinds of business models co-existing for e-commerce”. ~ Yu Zhang, CEIBS Prof. of Management

Answers from CEIBS Dean Professor Ding Yuan, an expert on globalisation of Chinese companies.

Answers from CEIBS Dean Professor Ding Yuan, an expert on globalisation of Chinese companies.

Traditional business models are being transformed by Supply Chain Financing (SCF) and Internet technologies. CEIBS Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management Zhao Xiande explains how SCF works, and who stands to gain.

CEIBS President & Professor of Entrepreneurship Pedro Nueno’s advice on how to improve a start-up’s chances of surviving.

Can anyone really say they’re immune to digital marketing? How do the US and China stack up against each other when it comes to the Internet? Why do poorer Chinese families spend more on their sons? Watch CEIBS’ Assistant Professor of Marketing Chen Lin explain her research.

Is feeding the poor really a good example of corporate social responsibility (CSR)? CEIBS Professor of Economics Bala Ramasamy explains the real meaning of CSR. It may be just as simple as following the labor laws.

Is there a link between diversity and innovation? What types of diversity are bad for the economy? CEIBS Professor of Economics Bala Ramasamy presents his research findings.

Turns out handing out visas doesn’t make a country more attractive to Chinese investment. What works? CEIBS Professor of Economics Bala Ramasamy shares his research findings.

CEIBS Prof Bala Ramasamy explains how he got into his main research areas and what he does when off campus. Hint: he’s changing young lives.

CEIBS Prof Bala Ramasamy uses the answer from his research as the basis for his camp for kids, the Foundation for Leadership and Moral Empowerment (FLAME) in Malaysia.

Emerging markets expert & CEIBS Professor Sam Park offers profit-boosting advice for both MNCs and local companies.

Why are MNCs finding it harder to turn a profit in emerging markets? Sam Park, CEIBS Professor of Strategy and author of Scaling the Tail explains how multinationals can sustain profitable growth in these markets.

CEIBS Professor of Economics Bala Ramasamy explores fears behind China's slowdown and provides the most likely quick fix scenario. Interview recorded on 4th Sept 2015.

CEIBS Prof of Economics Bala Ramasamy analyses the reasons behind China’s slowdown.

Globalisation isn’t ALL about the big names. Author of “Born Globals, Networks and the Large Multinational Enterprise” and CEIBS Professor Shameen Prashantham explains how small companies can punch above their weight by leveraging networks and partnering with large multinational companies.

The right networking skills can help entrepreneurs eying the global market. Author of “Born Globals, Networks and the Large Multinational Enterprise” and CEIBS Professor Shameen Prashantham on how to leverage connections.

2015 marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the EU and China. CEIBS Senior Research Associate and Deputy Director for European Relations David Gosset analyzes the importance of the Sino-European relationship to – and for – both sides, and the rest of the world. He looks at the challenges being faced now, and what lies ahead. Gosset is also director of the Academia Sinica Europaea at CEIBS and the founder of the Euro-China Forum.

It turns out there’s some element of truth to the Despicable Me movies where the villain is transformed from being Super Bad to Super Dad after he has to father three little girls. Now new research has shown that having a daughter also impacts the way CEOs run their companies. A study of some of the largest companies in the US shows that CEOs with daughters spend an extra $59.5 million per year on corporate social responsibility (CSR). They also tend to lean towards more diversity in the workplace when it comes to gender and minorities, show greater concern for employees, and do more to ensure work-life balance. In fact, having a female child makes a male CEO almost a third more likely to make CSR decisions similar to those made by a female CEO. The new research was done by CEIBS Finance Professors Henrik Cronqvist and Frank Yu. They looked at the decisions made by almost 400 American CEOs who, between them, have a total of almost 1,000 children. Previous research had shown that judges with daughters tend to vote more liberally. So too are congressmen with daughters, especially when it comes to reproductive rights issues. This is the first time, though, that the effect on the behaviour of CEOs from large corporations has been examined. “Male CEOs with at least one daughter show a stronger attachment to society at large and concern for the well-being of stakeholders other than their shareholders. This may be expressed as increased concern for not only diversity, but also the environment, employee relations, and similar issues,” says Prof Frank Yu. The paper is available for download at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2618358

China's Grand Strategy - The New Silk Road - a vision to boost development along the ancient silk road connecting China and Europe. Watch CEIBS' David Gosset explaining why and how China's New Silk Road will reshape the world.

CEIBS Prof Rama Velamuri speaking during Indian Management Conclave 2014. Video provided by Indian Management Conclave 2014

CEIBS Visiting Prof Wang Jianmao evaluates the country's economic status

Prof. Ding Yuan, former Co-director of CEIBS Centre for Globalisation of Chinese Companies, shares his findings.

CEIBS IAB Co-Chairman Prof. John Quelch discusses the challenges and opportunities of Alibaba’s steps towards internationalisation.

CEIBS Prof. Richard Brubaker explains why transparency is key for multinationals targeting the Chinese market.

CEIBS Prof of Finance Henrik Cronqvist tells us why BABA is such a big deal.

Why do Chinese companies invest overseas? What is special about Chinese firms going abroad? What challenges are they facing? CEIBS Prof. Klaus Meyer explains.

How can China be more sustainable? CEIBS Visiting Professor of Sustainability Richard Brubaker explores the environmental issues that Chinese people worry the most about.