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Research Degree Programmes [ Programme Details & Admission ]

• contribute to the advancement of knowledge through independent and original research;
• demonstrate specialist subject knowledge and a high level of transferable skills, including analytical, communication and leadership skills; and
• enhance economic, social and cultural development.

Research Areas

This area deals mainly with business models, processes and systems enabled by Web-based technologies. It is concerned essentially with marketing, management and socio-technical issues surrounding the application of web-based technologies in business and organisations for improving efficiency, effectiveness, and competitiveness. This area is composed of three inter-related sub-domains: (1) Internet Business Systems (e.g. customer relation management systems, enterprise resource planning systems); (2) Enterprise Collaboration (e.g. virtual communities, inter-organisational systems); and (3) Electronic Commerce (e.g. online shop, Internet marketing). Internet marketing in particular deals with the processes of growing and promoting businesses using online media, and tackles issues such as search engine marketing and interactive advertising. Special attention is placed on E-Business and Internet marketing issues in the Greater China region where potential for research and applications are enormous.

This area of research spans over some major fields in economics, corporate governance, accounting and finance. For International Economics, it covers a wide scope of issues and topics, ranging from free trade vs. protectionism to human and physical capital mobility; from WTO to exchange rates; from FDI to migration; from intellectual property protection to regional development and growth, just to name a few. As for Corporate Governance, Accounting and Finance, the research focuses on the corporate landscape issues in Hong Kong, the Chinese Mainland and other Asian Pacific countries. Using capital market data, the research more specifically examines the interrelationships between corporate governance, financial disclosure and reporting, ownership structure and corporate performance, family firms, legal and regulatory environment and accounting quality, earnings quality, compensation and earnings management, economic consequences of accounting choices, audit pricing, auditor switch, audit opinion, auditor reputation and specialisation, the impact of accounting information on securities markets, international dimensions of accounting and financial management, international comparison of accounting and auditing practices, dividend and debt policies.

The focus of this area is on the management of innovation and knowledge for business decision making and organisational competitiveness, particularly in the Asian context. Research issues in this area are complex and cross-functional, calling for an interdisciplinary research approach. The research area spreads across the disciplines of information systems, management, management sciences, marketing and economics. Examples of specific problem areas researchers in this group address include (among others) knowledge-based logistics and transportation management; knowledge/information systems design, adoption and security; methodologies and models for transforming data into information/knowledge aiding management decisions; product innovation management and strategy; impact of knowledge and innovation management; and the human, economic and marketing aspects of knowledge and innovation. Research in this area often involves a cross-cultural perspective.