Podcasts@SMU

With the advent of new technologies, rapidly changing customer needs and emerging competitors, companies across industries are facing disruptions like never before. To succeed, they will need to innovate by harnessing the power of a wide range of partners who can bring different skills, experience, capacity, and their own networks to the task. In this podcast, SMU University Professor Arnoud De Meyer, who is also co-author of The Ecosystem Edge (https://ecosystemedge.com/) and The Ecosystem Advantage, shares riveting lessons from organisations poised to innovate successfully in this age of disruption. His case-based research reveals how ecosystem leaders bring companies together with complementary abilities to redefine value, serve more customers and create an overall larger pie for each to partake from.

Data has emerged as the most important driver for modern economic development. New industries have arisen from the use of data with personal information as the core asset, while many traditional models of business are ‘disrupted’ or drastically transformed. Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) has also become an integral tool for the management and processing of data, including personal data, as it provides greater accuracy and capability. How should the use of A.I. in data management be regulated and should it be treated any differently under the data protection regime? What role can A.I. play in regulating the use of personal data and as a cybersecurity tool? Is creating a form of propertisation of personal data and ‘data ownership’ useful? These are just some of the lingering questions that regulators and organisations are currently grappling with. Central to the issue is how A.I. can best serve and safeguard humanity’s interests. Warren Chik is Associate Professor of Law at SMU School of Law, and concurrently Deputy Director at SMU’s Centre for AI and Data Governance. In this podcast, he shares his recent research into Artificial Intelligence and Data Protection in Singapore, which takes a deeper look into consumers’ trust, organisational security and government regulation.

Rapid urbanisation, coupled with the lack of coordination in the use of resources, such as taxis and security personnel, has negatively affected a wide array of quality-of-life metrics. These include waiting time in queues, response time for emergencies, and the number of traffic violations in cities. Using AI and Machine Learning methods, aggregation systems have been developed and adopted to improve the matching of resources and demand, thereby enhancing the efficiency of real-world transportation, emergency response and security systems. In this podcast, Associate Professor Pradeep Varakantham from the SMU School of Information Systems shares how AI can be used to improve transportation and security.

Singapore is a small and open economy, with its economic growth highly dependent on international trade. With the momentum of global trade growth being buffeted by increased economic uncertainties and rising trade tensions, does Singapore’s position in the global value chains, or GVCs, stand it in good stead to navigate choppy waters ahead? In this podcast, Associate Professor of Economics and Lee Kong Chian Fellow Chang Pao-Li from the SMU School of Economics, discusses the key findings of her research jointly conducted with Phuong T. B. Nguyen, Postdoctoral Research Fellow from SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business. They evaluate how intensively the Singapore economy has participated in the GVCs, and characterise Singapore’s key upstream and downstream trade partners in the international production network. They also analyse the position of Singapore in the GVC, and how its position has shifted over the years. The pattern of Singapore’s position is compared with those of major regional exporters including China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the US, and the world as a whole.

Global warming and climate change have created an unprecedented global interest in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, especially in energy production. Biomass, or organic matter, which is a renewable energy source that can replace fossil fuels in energy production is gaining popularity. Consequently, commercialising agricultural residues as biomass is gaining momentum in many countries. In a pioneering study, Onur Boyabatli, Associate Professor of Operations Management and DBS Sustainability Fellow at SMU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Business, together with Assistant Professor of Operations Management Buket Avci, and PhD student Li Bin, studied the economic and environmental implications of biomass commercialisation in agricultural processing industries. In this podcast, Associate Professor Boyabatli shares his insights into this trending subject and the policy implications of their research findings.

Building on research conducted in 2018 on the clear and positive link between high levels of psychological safety and a strong teamwork culture, Richard Smith, Professor of Strategic Management and Deputy Dean (Programmes) at the SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business, has now dug deeper by focusing on diversity. How does closing the gender gap within organisations in Asian countries impact overall company performance? Are employees more productive, or less, with a sense of belonging to the workplace? In this podcast, Professor Smith discusses the key findings of his research conducted in collaboration with consultancy group Great Place to Work Institute Singapore. The rigorous study, one of the largest in Asia to highlight gender differences, surveyed over 400,000 employees from more than 800 organisations located across eight countries in the Asia Pacific.

Technology is playing an increasingly important role in improving the quality of care for the elderly, be it enhancing aged care patient experience, developing home-care for an ageing population, or automating clinical processes. Associate Professor Tan Hwee Pink from SMU’s School of Information Systems, together with his team, have extensive ground experience in developing and deploying senior-centric technologies, from previous research projects at SMU. They are now collaborating with NTUC Healthcare Co-operative Ltd, a key provider of community programmes for seniors in Singapore, to use smart technology to enhance the operational efficiency and productivity of NTUC Healthcare’s centres. In this podcast, he discusses the type of technologies deployed in the project with NTUC Healthcare, the preliminary results achieved, and the challenges faced.

Financial literacy in Singapore has not been analysed in much detail, despite the fact that this is one of the world’s most rapidly aging nations. In this podcast, Professor of Finance Benedict Koh from the SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business, discusses the key findings of his research jointly conducted with Olivia Mitchell from the University of Pennsylvania and Susann Rohwedder, Senior Economist at the RAND Corporation and Associate Director of the RAND Center for the Study of Aging. Using a unique new data-set and nationally representative survey - the Singapore Life Panel, they conducted an analysis of older Singaporeans’ financial literacy. Here, Professor Koh discusses his key findings, including: Do older Singaporeans score better on financial knowledge compared to their counterparts in the United States? What are the empirical linkages between financial literacy and retirement preparedness in Singapore? And is financial literacy positively associated with greater wealth and diversity of portfolios?

As the profile of businesses engaged in disputes is now more diverse than ever, there is a need for dispute resolution mechanisms that are culturally responsive as well as internationally robust. Mediation is one mechanism that offers a flexible and confidential forum for business to resolve their differences in an effective and efficient way. Interest in mediation to resolve cross-border disputes has increased dramatically in recent years due to increasing access to the Internet and the growing number of smaller enterprises doing business internationally. Nadja Alexander is Professor of Law at SMU School of Law. She also heads the Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy as its Director, and a prominent mediator, educator, consultant and writer. In a recent study, Prof Alexander had identified some of the top trends impacting the nature and practice of international mediation. She discusses these key trends and developments in this podcast.

Trust is an important building block for organisational success, whether it is trust between managers and their subordinates or a brand and its customers. Tan Hwee Hoon is an Associate Professor of Human Resources & Organisational Behaviour at SMU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Business. She has been involved in a multi-year study on trust that spans 30 countries across six continents. In this podcast, she shares her insights into the research which examines how factors of trustworthiness – that is, ability, benevolence and integrity – vary in terms of importance in trust-building across countries; and how one’s general willingness to trust, also termed ‘propensity to trust’, affects relationship-building in different countries.

Assistant Prof Liang Hao – Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR in short, is an evolving business practice that incorporates sustainable development or ‘doing good’ into a company's business model. In today's socially conscious environment, customers and employees place a premium on spending their money with or working for businesses that prioritise CSR. As such, socially responsible companies can cultivate positive brand recognition, increase customer loyalty, and attract top-tier employees. Taking a fresh approach on CSR research, Assistant Professor of Finance and DBS Sustainability Fellow LIANG Hao from the SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business, has written two award-winning papers that studied how a firms’ CSR behaviour can influence that of its suppliers as well as its peer firms. In this podcast, he shares the findings and implications of these studies.

Assistant Prof Yeo Su Lin – Death is a part of life. However, people often feel awkward and ill at ease when faced with the opportunity for communication at the end of life. While talking about death and dying may not be comfortable for some, research has shown that having these conversations within families and communities, and with our healthcare provider can help prepare us emotionally for our deaths and that of others, and better ensure that we will receive the care and treatment that we prefer at the end of life. Yeo Su Lin is an Assistant Professor of Corporate Communication at SMU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Business. Her research focuses on corporate reputation, crisis management and health communication. In this podcast, she discusses a recent nationwide study which was conducted to better understand end-of-life communication and sentiments towards palliative care in Singapore.

The rise of new technologies is changing the way companies raise funds. Along with increased popularity of crowdfunding in recent years, a new form of funding has emerged – that is, the use of Initial Coin Offerings, or ICOs. In 2017, companies in the United States raised over $4 billion through ICOs; in 2018, more than $21 billion has been raised. ICOs generate many challenges for securities regulators, and also give rise to other issues including corporate governance, data protection, anti-money laundering and insolvency. Assistant Professor Aurelio Gurrea-Martínez from the SMU School of Law has conducted legal research on financial regulation. In this podcast, he shares his recent comparative and interdisciplinary study which addresses the issue of ICOs and makes recommendations to regulators and policy makers in a way that aims to promote innovation and firms’ access to finance without harming investor protection, market integrity and the stability of the financial system.

The advent of financial technology, or fintech, has created new opportunities, business models, products and services. Fintech innovations have disrupted the financial industry, leading to novel ways of delivering financial services, not only by traditional financial institutions but also by start-ups. There is now a new way of computing that uses extremely small objects called "quantum" that could revolutionise the power and accuracy of computations from artificial intelligence to financial investments. Associate Professor Paul Griffin is a financial technology expert at the SMU School of Information Systems; he is also Director of the Financial Technology track under the SMU Master of IT in Business programme. In this podcast, Prof Griffin, who has started researching into the efficacies of quantum computers, shares his research findings and discusses how he sees quantum computers developing in the near future.

The variety and delivery of cloud services have been improving over the years. More and more businesses have started to adopt these services to reduce upfront and ongoing costs and enhance business efficiency. However, there remain many considerations and deployment possibilities which a business must take into account before deciding to take up cloud services. In this podcast, Assistant Professor Ouh Eng Lieh from the SMU School of Information Systems discusses his ongoing service profitability research on the factors and considerations that enable consumers to make informed decisions on cloud services adoption.

Assistant Professor of Humanities Orlando Woods from SMU’s School of Social Sciences has a keen research interest in areas including religion, cities and urban landscapes, digital technologies, space, and social and cultural geography. He has published a research paper on the role of Christianity in migrant integration in Singapore, and has received a grant from the Singapore Ministry of Education to conduct further research on this subject. Titled ‘New Religious Pluralism in Singapore: Migration, Integration and Difference”, the study seeks to better understand new types of socio-cultural diversity in Singapore. In this podcast, Assistant Professor Woods discusses the role of whether religion enables or dis-enables migrant integration into Singapore.

Assistant Professor Richard Crowley from SMU’s School of Accountancy examines financial accounting using both archival and analytical methods for his research. Much of his archival work deals with large sets of unstructured data using high-powered computing algorithms to address accounting issues that are otherwise infeasible to approach. He has recently written two research articles on using a machine learning technique to assess the content of companies’ disclosures. In this podcast, he discusses how fraud and misreporting can be detected by studying a company’s financial statement using a machine learning technique, and shares how companies disclose financial information on Twitter, and how feedback from investors and others can influence this.

Associate Professor of Humanities Winston Chow from SMU’s School of Social Sciences has researched on the areas of urban vulnerability to climate change; sustainability in urban climatology; and perceptions of environmental and climate change in tourism. In recent years, he has published papers on the impact of weather extremes on urban resilience to hydro-climate hazards and trans-boundary variations of urban drought vulnerability and its impact on water resource management in Singapore and Johor, Malaysia. In this podcast, Associate Professor Chow will discuss the continued economic growth of a city by adopting sustainable urban development measures.

Assistant Professor of Humanities Aidan Wong from SMU’s School of Social Sciences has researched on the areas of development and sustainability, in particular on electronic waste, informal labour and economic development. In recent years, he has published a paper on ‘Waste’, Value and Informal Labour: The Regional E-Waste Recycling Production Network in Malaysia and Singapore” and is seeking to update it. In this podcast, Assistant Professor Wong discusses the value of electronic waste recycling and sustainability in Singapore.

Associate Professor of Accounting Holly Yang from SMU’s School of Accountancy has researched on the role of individual managers in corporate disclosure and determinants of firms’ voluntary disclosure decisions. Together with co-author Associate Prof Young Jun Cho, she is currently working on publishing a paper on Institutional Cross Ownership of Peer Firms and Investment Sensitivity to Stock Price. In this podcast, she discuss how cross-ownership of industry peers helps institutional investors better acquire industry insights and produce private information, thus allowing managers to incorporate this information in their investment decisions.

Cross-border linkages among national stock markets have been strengthening over time, aided by free capital flows and the advancement in information technology. The use of electronic trading, which reduces cost and increases the speed of international financial transactions, has helped to advance this trend. Additionally, the deregulation of equity markets and liberalisation of financial accounts in emerging economies increase their connectedness with world markets. In this podcast, Professor of Economics and Statistics Chow Hwee Kwan from the SMU School of Economics, discusses the key findings of her research on the growing financial linkages in the region, and how it enhances the understanding of the interactions among national stock markets.

Dr Tania Nagpaul Youth at-risk typically refers to those who may be seriously anti-social, homeless, who may have dropped out of school, taken to substance abuse or engaged in illegal activities. The factors that place these young people at risk in the first place, such as poverty, family dysfunction and disturbed neighbourhoods, are often not factored into the equation. Dr Tania Nagpaul and Ms Chen Jinwen from the Lien Centre for Social Innovation at SMU have published a study which used the Self-determination Theory offered by Deci and Ryan in a past research as a lens to better understand the needs of youth-at-risk and their fulfilment from the vantage points of both social service professionals and youth themselves. In this podcast, Dr Tania Nagpaul discusses the key findings of this research and how it generates a nuanced understanding of the needs of youth in Singapore. Additional Info Self-determination theory as a framework for understanding needs of youth at-risk: Perspectives of social service professionals and the youth themselves - by Tania Nagpaul, Jinwen Chen

Senior Research Associate Stephen Hoskins CREA The issues facing a growing silver population are gaining ground. Singapore’s baby boomers are now exiting the workforce. Would those approaching retirement have enough resources to maintain their current standard of living? Would future policy changes in healthcare, housing and pension impact their retirement adequacy? Facing a rapidly ageing population, Singapore is presented with urgent policy challenges. Yet there is very little data on the economic, health and family circumstances of older Singaporeans. In response, the Centre for Research on the Economics of Ageing, or CREA, at the Singapore Management University has been collecting monthly data on a panel of Singaporeans aged between 50 and 70 years, resulting in the Singapore Life Panel®, or SLP. SMU’s Prof Bryce Hool and Prof Rhema Vaithianathan detail the methodology by which the SLP was constructed, in a published paper titled High-Frequency Internet Survey of a Probability Sample of Older Singaporeans: The Singapore Life Panel®. In this podcast, Stephen Hoskins, Senior Research Associate at CREA introduces the SLP and how it yields rich and remarkable insights to Singapore’s ageing situation. Additional Info High-frequency Internet survey of a probability sample of older Singaporeans: The Singapore Life Panel - by Rhema Vaithianathan, Bryce Hool, Michael D. Hurd, Susann Rohwedder

Professor Zhu Feida The global personal data economy is growing faster than anyone could have imagined. The current business model for data is broken – for individual users and businesses alike. On one hand, users don not have enough control over their own data, such as what data is collected and how the data is used. That challenges their privacy. Users are also not fairly rewarded for their data. On the other hand, while most businesses see the value of customer data, the data they have is fragmented and incomplete. That results in blurry customer profiles, inaccurate insights and poor recommendations. Furthermore, it is difficult for businesses to connect with their customers in a personalised way and track the effectiveness of the connection. In this podcast, Associate Professor Zhu Feida from SMU School of Information Systems shares his research on a next-generation, blockchain-based platform named Symphony. The platform seeks to empower a personal data economy by democratising and personalising data intelligence, with privacy by design.

Professor Pearlie Koh and Professor Tan Hwee Hoon The law on Directors’ duties is an important part of corporate governance. It is therefore unsurprising that a large part of existing research focuses on understanding what the law requires and how it applies in different situations. Such research is however largely reactive. Taking a fresh perspective, SMU Associate Professor of Law Pearlie Koh and SMU Assoc Prof of Organisational Behaviour & Human Resources Tan Hwee Hoon collaborated in a multi-disciplinary research which examined how company directors in Singapore understand the law as it applies to them, the gaps in awareness, and whether the laws and regulations work as envisaged. In this podcast, they discussed the details of this study, which is expected to form a valuable basis for further research in the future.

Professor Hannah Chang Crowdfunding is changing how entrepreneurs finance their innovation. As the number of crowdfunding platforms continues to rise, competition for investor attention also intensifies. What can entrepreneurs and communicators do to heighten attention and strengthen persuasion, in order to secure greater success for their crowdfunding campaign? Associate Professor of Marketing Hannah Chang from SMU's Lee Kong Chian School of Business specialises in consumer behaviour. In this podcast, she shares a recent research where she and her collaborators investigated all product-pitch videos on online crowdfunding portal, Kickstarter using a dataset with more than 30,000 project videos and millions of support from the crowd. They observed a phenomenon that has yet been documented in prior literature, that is: having multiple voices in the videos enhances persuasion and leads to increased funding.

As markets shift and technological breakthroughs disrupt business models, what is the ‘secret recipe’ of a company that makes it ‘a great place to work’? Against the backdrop of a hypercompetitive landscape, how are successful, productive and high-performing teams within an organisation created? Richard Smith, Deputy Dean for Programmes and Professor of Strategic Management at the SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business, conducted a study in collaboration with consultancy group Great Place to Work Institute Singapore. The project aimed at identifying the critical element that companies need to focus on to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. This robust study surveyed over 400,000 employees from more than 800 organisations across eight countries in the Asia-Pacific. It found that the more comfortable employees feel about speaking up at their workplaces, the more productive they are likely to be.

Assistant Professor Kotaro Hara Crowd work or crowdsourcing, an emerging form of online contracting work, is growing. About 600,000 workers participate in the online gig economy annually and the number is growing rapidly. Crowdsourcing facilitates new ways of working. Its remote and asynchronous work style – unbounded by time and location – could enable people with disabilities and stay-at-home parents to work. On the other hand, many are concerned that workers in crowdsourcing markets are treated unfairly. Researchers are particularly concerned about low wage of crowd work. For example, past research has found that workers typically earn US$2 an hour. In this podcast, Assistant Professor Kotaro Hara from SMU School of Information Systems discusses his research on why crowdsourcing platforms for work, which includes Amazon Mechanical Turk, contribute to low wages for workers in the gig economy, and what could potentially be done to improve the efficacy of these platforms.

Assistant Professor Subhajit Datta Civilization, as we know today, runs largely on software. Software intensive systems underpin almost all aspects of our lives – serving our communication, transportation, healthcare, education, entertainment, and many other needs in myriad ways. The development of software as a large-scale industrial artefact has some distinct characteristics. These are accentuated in the current age of pervasive connectivity between individuals and systems, as well as data generation and preservation at scales never seen before. We are therefore at a juncture of big challenges and bigger opportunities for large scale software development. In this podcast, Assistant Professor Subhajit Datta from SMU's School of Information Systems shares his research on software development in this age of hyperconnectivity and big data.

Assistant Professor Tan Hwee Xian Many of us use Google Maps for our daily commute, especially when we are exploring new places. Through Google Maps, we can easily find routes that provide access via various means – such as driving, public transport and walking. However, persons with disabilities who travel around in wheelchairs might face difficulties finding barrier-free access paths for their first-and-last-mile travel needs. In this podcast, Assistant Professor Tan Hwee Xian from SMU's School of Information Systems shares more about her ongoing work in the Smart Barrier-Free Access project. The project uses passive crowdsourced road accessibility information from wheelchair volunteers to map barrier-free access paths in Singapore.

Associate Professor of Psychology Norman Li from SMU’s School of Social Sciences holds a PhD and Masters in Arts in Social Psychology from Arizona State University. He also has a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Michigan and a Bachelors degree in Economics from Northwestern University. His research interests include mate preferences and mate value, evolutionary social psychology, economic psychology and the mismatch of modern conditions and adaptive mechanisms. Earlier this year, he published a research study on 'Evolutionary Mismatch', a phenomenon that largely underlies and explains most of the problems we have in the modern world. In this podcast, Associate Professor Li discusses this concept and shares his views on how it permeates every aspect of our lives, including low fertility.

Associate Professor Pradeep Varakantham Effective and efficient safety and security systems are critical for the smooth functioning of urban environments. Given the widely reported attacks in several major cities of the world, augmented intelligent systems that can anticipate, detect and plug any gaps in incident prevention and response, are a need of the hour. A.I. researchers are pursuing techniques at the intersection data analytics, decision theory, game theory and behavioural economics to improve incident prevention and response. These systems have been applied to improve infrastructure security at airports, coast guards, metro systems, emergency and fire response, traffic patrolling and many others. In this podcast, Associate Professor Pradeep Varakantham from SMU’s School of Information Systems shares how A.I. can be used to improve safety and security.

Associate Professor Tomoki Fujii Over the last few decades, the overall health status of people around the world has significantly improved. What helps people to live longer than ever before? What other factors, besides income levels, play a part in determining health outcomes? Associate Professor of Economics Tomoki Fujii, who is also Associate Dean (Undergraduate Curriculum) at the SMU School of Economics, has conducted a study on the impact of public and private sources of health spending on health outcomes. He discusses his research in this podcast.

Cyber-attacks cost the global economy billions of dollars every year, and are of growing concern to businesses and governments around the world. One reason for the surge in cybersecurity violation events is the low cost of acquiring the necessary tools and programmes to commit cyber-attacks. Online hacker forums are among the most important platforms which enable communication among potential hackers or technology-savvy users, and provide free-to-access resources on malicious attack techniques. In this podcast, Assistant Professor Wang Qiuhong from SMU’s School of Information Systems, shares her work on the net impact of hacking discussions on cyber-attacks and the regulation of hacker forums.

Associate Professor Manoj Thulasidas In the last couple of decades, we saw an ‘information revolution’. Lately, it has been changing the way we think of data. We already see the early ramifications of this evolution in the data landscape, in the form of highly personalised web portals and micro-targeted advertising. What does this mean for students? What kind of skill-sets will they be expected to have? One of the first things taught in introductory analytics courses is "clustering" – an algorithm that can find applications in, for instance, customer segmentation for a marketing campaign. On what basis do we decide on the number of customer segments? What customer characteristics, or variables, should we use? Of course, we can fall back on our domain expertise to make such decisions, however, the data science way is to look for data-driven decisions. In this podcast, Associate Professor Manoj Thulasidas from SMU’s School of Information Systems shares his views on the evolving data landscape, and his recent work in data analytics.

Associate Professor Michael Ramsay Bashshur

Decades of research on organisational behaviour have shown that it is strongly influenced by the socio-economic environments in which firms operate. Little is known, however, about how organisations consider ‘time’. Taking a completely fresh approach, Assistant Professor of Finance LIANG Hao from the SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business looked into how the language spoken in an organisation affects its corporate future orientation, i.e. how it perceives the future and prioritises practices such as corporate social responsibility, and research and development. In this podcast, he shares this interesting research which found that companies with strong future-time reference (or FTR) language as their working language engage less in CSR and R&D by 7% and 40.6% respectively, as compared to those in weak-FTR language environments.

Assistant Professor Akshat Kumar

Assistant Professor Sterling Huang

Professor Melvyn Teo

The Public Cleanliness Satisfaction Survey was led by Professor Paulin Tay Straughan, Dean of Students and Professor of Sociology at the Singapore Management University to measure and track the level of public satisfaction with the state of public cleanliness in Singapore. In addition to the development of a Public Cleanliness Satisfaction Index, the Survey examines the public’s satisfaction with public cleaning services; public opinions regarding the state of public cleanliness; as well as social behaviours related to public cleanliness. The Survey involved 2000 Singaporeans and Permanent Residents and was completed in March 2017. In this podcast, Professor Straughan shares her research findings, and discusses what more can be done to keep our environment clean and how all these affect our general well-being.

Crowdfunding, a disruptive force in the traditional finance sector, is changing how entrepreneurs finance their creative endeavours and bring products to market. It has allowed thousands of innovating entrepreneurs to raise money, build brand awareness, and join a broader conversation with large numbers of potential backers, all while still in the product development process. But does crowdfunding really enables innovation and creativity to flourish? Anirban Mukherjee, Assistant Professor of Marketing at the SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business, recently published a research paper titled “Does the Crowd Support Innovation? Innovation Claims and Success on Kickstarter”. In this podcast, he discusses this study and shares the surprising finding that innovation can be a hard sell with the Crowd. In fact, it was found that crowdfunding takes a 26-percent hit when a product is framed as both ‘novel’ and ‘useful’.

Associate Professor Jiang Jing The advent of social media has seen large volumes of information generated on social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook every day. Such information presents potentially useful data for governments and businesses; however, to analyse such unstructured digital data and gain meaningful insights from them is complex and difficult. Associate Professor Jiang Jing, a data analyst expert from the SMU School of Information Systems and a Lead Principal Investigator at SMU’s Living Analytics Research Centre, uses data mining to gain insights from social media platforms. In this podcast, Assoc Prof Jiang shares her research into online sensing.. www.smu.edu.sg © Copyright 2017 Singapore Management University. All Rights Reserved

Assistant Professor Helen Zhou Renewable energy sources – such as wind and solar power, have made it possible for us to generate electricity in more environmentally-friendly ways. With the substantial decline in the costs of renewable technologies in recent years, the renewable industry has reached a fundamentally new stage in its development. A growing number of countries are adopting policies to encourage the growth of renewables, and major businesses are embracing renewable energy in a big way. However, the proliferation of renewable energy installations can also lead to unintended consequences – one such concern is ‘negative energy prices’. Helen Zhou is an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at the SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business, specialising in energy and sustainable operations research. In this podcast, she discusses the findings of her research on renewable energy operations. She believes that having a good understanding of how negative electricity prices drive economic incentives can help policy-makers and energy merchants make better decisions. Additional information for reference: Electricity rading and Negative Prices: Storage vs Disposal - by Yangfang Helen Zhou, Alan Andrew Scheller-Wolf, Nicola Secomandi, Stephan Smith Link: http://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/3483/ Managing Wind-Based Electricity Generation in the Presence of Storage and Transmission Capacity - by Yangfang Helen Zhou, Alan Andrew Scheller-Wolf, Nicola Secomandi, Stephan Smith Link: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1962414

Associate Professor Paul Griffin The advent of financial technology, or fintech, has created new opportunities, business models, products and services. Fintech innovations have disrupted the financial industry, leading to novel ways of delivering financial services not only by traditional financial institutions but also by start-ups. One such interesting development is the emergence of smart contracts. What are smart contracts? How smart are they, and how do they compare against traditional contracts? Associate Professor Paul Griffin is a financial technology expert from the SMU School of Information Systems and Director of the Financial Technology track under the Master of IT in Business programme. He has done much research into the efficacy of smart contracts. In this podcast, Assoc Prof Griffin shares his research findings and discusses how he sees smart contracts developing in the near future.

Associate Professor Onur Boyabatli

Associate Professor Rajesh Krishna Balan

Assistant Professor Lee Yongki

Associate Professor Gao Debin

Professor Melvyn Teo

Associate Professor Marko Pitesa