23 CKGSB Alumni Named on 2021 Forbes China Philanthropy List

In the recent 2021 Forbes China Philanthropy List, 23 of the 100 top Chinese entrepreneurs who had made the most contributions to public welfare were CKGSB alumni. Compiled based on cash donations of individual and corporate donors in China during 2020, this year’s list represents 221.7 billion RMB (approx. US $34.21 billioncash donations made to charity, in which CKGSB 23 alumnis contributions of 63 billion RMB (approx. US $9.72 billion) make up 30% of the total amount.

In addition to the Philanthropy List, CKGSB alumni also had a prominent presence in other lists that Forbes China recently released, amplifying CKGSB’s positioning as the preferred choice for business leaders:

  • 2021 Forbes China’s 50 Best CEO: 7 CKGSB alumni listed
  • 2021 Forbes China’s 100 Top Businesswomen: 11 CKGSB alumni listed
  • 2021 Forbes China’s 50 Women in Tech: 2 CKGSB alumni listed
  • 2021 Forbes China’s 20 Up-and-coming Businesswomen: 1 CKGSB alumni listed
  • 2021 Forbes China’s 100 Most Innovative Companies: 6 CKGSB alumni companies were listed

Since its establishment in 2002, philanthropy has been part of CKGSB’s DNA and core responsibility. CKGSB’s vision is to influence the Chinese business community in addressing societys most challenging problems and sharing best practices in social innovation from China with the world. We are proud of our alumni in their unwavering dedication to give back to society as evidenced in the recent Forbes rankings!

Click here for more information on CKGSBs efforts in social innovation and social responsibility. 

 

 

Industry Experts Join CKGSB Professor, Zhu Rui, to Assess China’s ESG Environment at Asia House Event

 

Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKBSB) Professor of Marketing and Director of the Social Innovation and Business for Good Center, Zhu Rui, along with industry experts shared insights on China’s global environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting, its new environmental impact regulations and the future of ESG investment.  Zhu was joined by Wang Xitong (Adeeb), Head of Senior Affairs/Senior Associate at Everbright Belt & Road Green Fund, Michelle Cameron, Head of Sustainable Investment and Finance Sales, Asia at Refinitiv (a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group), and Phyllis Papadavid, Head of Research and Advisory at Asia House, at an event hosted by Asia House on May 17. 

 

Optimism and Growth

 

Professor Zhu kicked off the webinar with a discussion on how attitudes towards ESG in China are shifting, “When I started teaching in 2016, the concept [of ESG] was very rarely known among my Chinese audience. Over the years, I saw a change in terms of how much people are paying attention [to ESG]”. Since 2021, Zhu has been leading the “Social Innovation and Business for Good” Field Course at CKGSB. The one-year, socially-minded field course requires students to initiate sustainable business practices in their companies or organizations. This field course started as a core course in the school’s Executive MBA program and is now being expanded to other programs.

 

The panelists expressed optimism towards the current ESG landscape. Zhu said, “during times of crisis, I see a greater demand from the public and consumers asking companies to pay more attention to be more responsible, to adopt ESG principles.”

 

Wang was also optimistic about the direction ESG is taking in China. He mentioned that the cumulative returns of the CSI 500 ESG benchmark index are 8.1% higher than the parent index.

 

He pointed out some key regulations in China: In 2020, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange required all listed companies to disclose ESG reports. In 2020, the China Banking and Interest Regulatory Commission issued a guidance requiring banking and financial institutions to incorporate ESG reporting into the entire credit granting process. In April 2022, the China Securities Regulatory Commission issued deadlines for listed companies to include ESG in the communication content of investor relations for the first time.”

 

However, Papadavid noted, “the push for sustainability comes at a time of heightened geopolitical and macroeconomic risk, and the nature of the slowdown means that persistent weakness in certain sectors of the economy will take precedence over the push for sustainability.” 

 

Worldwide Challenges

 

One of the key themes that featured in the webinar was the challenge to ESG reporting in China and around the world due to a lack of unified standards in ESG reporting.

 

When Zhu first started teaching ESG related courses, she used the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) which categorizes ESG standards across 77 industries. However, Zhu highlighted, “there are a lot of these guidelines around the world and criteria you have to meet, but some of them don’t quite fit into the Chinese context. For example, in the gaming industry, which falls into the “Internet Media and Service Industries” category, its ESG criteria relates to consumer privacy, data privacy, employee engagement and inclusiveness. But these issues are not what Chinese computer game companies pay attention to. They care more about gaming addiction in adolescents.” Zhu is now working with her colleagues to promote initiatives and guidelines for each industry centering around ESG principles in a Chinese context.

 

Cameron agreed with Professor Zhu, saying that “there are different weightings that need to be applied across different sectors depending on which parts of ESG they have more exposure to.” She also identified the problem that, due to many ESG data providers, there are many ways in which the data is collected.

 

Further discussion involved data consistency required for global ESG reporting. Cameron said, “we need to get to a point where we can run and compare data across the globe and look at the differences between the industries in the different jurisdictions.”

 

Wang developed this point further: “A lack of globally accepted standards is a problem…we have seen a lot of ESG or green finance rating agencies in the market, but each of them has their own set of ESG or green finance indicators and their own approaches to give ESG and green finance scores. A unified standard for ESG or green finance is important not only for investors but also for consultancy firms.”

 

WATCH THE EVENT IN FULL HERE

Na KE

Biography

Dr. Ke Na is Assistant Professor of Accounting at the University of Hong Kong. Dr. Na graduated from University of Missouri, Columbia and received his PhD Degree in Accounting from Simon Business School, University of Rochester, USA in 2014. He currently teaches Introduction to Financial Accounting and Boot Camp of Economics for Master of Accounting.

CKGSB Dean Xiang Bing Speaks to Chosun Biz about the Development of China-South Korea Relations

This interview with Dean Xiang Bing was originally conducted and published by Chosun Biz in Korean and has been translated into English.

“In the 300 years since the Enlightenment, the global economy, politics, and culture have all been proposed and led by the Western countries. This trend should be changed through economic alliances between Asian countries, including China and South Korea.”

Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, established in Beijing, is considered one of the top 4 business schools along with Peking University, Tsinghua University, and China Europe International Business School. Jack Ma, Founder of Alibaba, Liu Chuanzhi, Chairman of Lenovo, Guo Guangchang, CEO of Fosun, and Chen Yidan, co-founder of Tencent are some of the notable alumni of CKGSB. The proportion of alumni of CKGSB in top positions at China’s leading 100 companies is about 20%, making up the ‘Who’s Who of Business in China.’

Q. What is the most remarkable achievement of the two countries during the 30 years of diplomatic relations between Korea and China?

At the time of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Korea and China in 1992, the volume of trade of goods between the two countries was only USD $5.05 billion (about KRW 6.61 trillion).

However, as of 2021, it surged to USD $362.4 billion dollars (about KRW 474.74 trillion).

For South Korea, China has maintained its position as the largest trading partner for as long as 18 years, from 2004 to 2021.

According to data from the U.N Conference on Trade and Development, Korea’s exports to China in 1995 (early in the diplomatic relations between Korea and China) were only 7.31%, but increased to 25.28% in 2021.

The proportion of Chinese imports from Korea, which accounted for only 5.48 percent of total imports in 1995, also increased to 22.53 percent in 2021.

These exchanges are accelerating further due to the Korea-China FTA (Free Trade Agreement) that took effect in 2015.

The growth of the China-Korea relations goes beyond economics. As of April 1, 2021, there were 67,438 Chinese students studying in Korea, accounting for 44.2% of all foreign students (Korea Educational Development Institute). On the other hand, in China, 13 cities, including Hong Kong, have established Korean schools ranging from kindergartens to high school curriculums, with more than 5,400 students and more than 600 teachers working there. The two countries have developed a win-win relationship, covering various fields such as business, education, and culture.

Q. How will the two countries benefit from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which took effect on January 1 this year?

As of the end of 2021, the population of RCEP member countries comprises of 29.7% (2.29 billion) of the world’s total population and accounts for 30.57% of the world’s GDP ($29.43 trillion).

In particular, RCEP is the first free trade agreement involving all three countries: Korea, China, and Japan. According to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the combined size of the three economies amounts to 25.1 percent of the global economy. RCEP will pave the way for the three countries to develop closer ties in the future. It will increase economic gains by increasing production and trade in these countries, especially in the high-tech manufacturing sector.

Q. Which industrial sector is particularly competitive for Korea in the Chinese market?

Korea has a competitive edge in semiconductors, electronics, and telecommunications. According to the Korea International Trade Association’s top 10 export items to China in 2021, electronic devices accounted for 41.7%, ranking first, and nuclear reactors, boilers, and mechanical equipment ranked second with 10.75%.

By industry, semiconductors, electric vehicles, and secondary batteries steadily dominate the export market. Korea’s new business sector is likely to remain competitive in the Chinese market in the future. This is because they quickly jumped to the early stages of global market growth and secured first-mover status and achieved quantitative growth in the global market.

Q. The Chinese government forecast economic growth of 5.5% this year. However, countries other than China expect China’s growth rate to be below expectations. What do you expect?

The key depends on the deregulation of the Chinese government. Recently, the Chinese government significantly eased regulations on oil, gas, and financial services. In the future, regulations on power generation, aviation, railways, and media may be eased. China’s unique economic system, driven by the government, is very different from that of the Western world. Therefore, it is very difficult to predict China’s economy by the standards of Western countries.

In addition, the impact of technological disruptions on the market cannot be ignored. Explosive growth may occur in areas such as the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, cloud computing, and Blockchain.

Therefore, an accurate prediction is difficult to make. However, given China’s unique economic system, this target is not impossible.

Q. You invented a unique concept called the Confucian Economic Sphere. Could you tell us about it?

In 2017, I coined CES, which stands for the Confucian Economic Sphere, combining four regions of China (including Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and mainland China) and eight economic regions, including Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam. As of 2021, CES’ GDP was USD $26.145 trillion (about KRW 3.4220 trillion), accounting for 27.15% of the world’s GDP. As of 2021, the number of CES companies among the “Fortune Global 500 Companies” stood at 215, accounting for 42%. In addition, the impact of CES is huge as the IMF expects it to drive global economic growth in the future.

“Korea and China are the main pillars of CES, both countries shall lead the world economy in the future.”

Q. What strengths does CES have over other economies?

In Samuel Huntington’s book, Clash of Civilization, he predicted that future wars would be fought over cultures. However, CES, which share the ideology of Confucianism and has relatively minor cultural differences.

I often visit Korea or Japan on business trips, and I have rarely felt a great cultural gap. But similarity this is not the only advantage. Even within CES, political and economic models between countries are different. They can learn from each other’s models.  

Q. What should Korea and China do to continue a positive relationship in the future?

There is so much room for cooperation between the two countries. The markets of both countries can be further opened through RCEP, and new opportunities can be further expanded with the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Economic Partnership (CPTPP) and the China, Korea and Japan FTA. The relation between these three countries, China, Korea and Japan, should be reborn as future-oriented and go beyond historical conflicts of the past. We cannot dwell on the past and neglect our present interests. In fact, all EU member states were in territorial and religious disputes in the past. These three countries, which are the main pillars of CES, should create a more future-oriented relationship.

Until now, we have jumped on and followed the world order and values that the West has created. But now, CES should be at the center and contribute to the world by creating Asian values.

Q. How can CKGSB contribute to this goal?

As I emphasized, we should move beyond history and towards the future. At CKGSB, we’ve been nurturing a global mindset and global values from the start among our students.

I hope that the alumni of CKGSB will be able to contribute to the development of both countries within the framework of CES.

Liandong Zhang

 

Biography

Dr. Liandong Zhang is Professor of Accounting at School of Accountancy at the Singapore Management University. He joined Singapore Management University in 2017 as the Associate Dean (Research) at School of Accountancy. Dr. Zhang graduated from Tsinghua University, Beijing and received his PhD Degree in Accounting from Nanyang Technological University in 2008. He has previously taught at the Concordia University in Canada and City University of Hong Kong. His current research interests include financial reporting quality, corporate governance, and taxation. He currently teaches Accounting Theory.

Ryan Dew

Ryan Dew is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He received his B.A. in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania, and his M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Marketing from Columbia University. His research explores how machine learning and Bayesian statistical methodologies can solve real world marketing problems, with a particular interest in the domains of customer relationship management, preference dynamics and estimation, and data-driven design. His recent work, Bayesian Nonparametric Customer Base Analysis with Model-based Visualizations, has been published in Marketing Science. His on-going research focuses on understanding and predicting how consumer preferences change over time, through novel hierarchical nonparametric models, and on understanding the underpinnings of effective logo design from a data-driven perspective, utilizing image processing and machine learning techniques. His dissertation, Machine Learning Methods for Data-driven Decisions, was a winner of the ISMS Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Competition, the Marketing Section of the American Statistical Association’s Doctoral Research Award, and was an honorable mention in the Marketing Science Institute’s Alden G. Clayton Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Competition.

The Role of the Physical Store: Developing Customer Value through ‘Fit Product’ Purchases

Chun-wei Chang, Jonathan Z. Zhang, Scott Neslin

Recent trends suggest retailers are ambivalent regarding the contribution of the physical retail store.  Ironically, several traditionally offline retailers are closing stores, while some traditionally online retailers are opening them.  This raises the question, what is the role of the physical retail store in today’s multichannel environment?  We posit that the type of product purchased, “fit” or “non-fit”, impacts subsequent customer value, and that purchasing fit products offline is especially effective at creating high value customers. We formulate a multivariate hidden Markov model (HMM) to investigate how customers make product and channel decisions. The HMM identifies two dynamic states – low-value and high-value. We hypothesize and find that fit-product purchases accelerate customer migration to the high-value state, especially if those purchases are made in the physical store. We theorize this occurs because buying fit products requires customer engagement, the physical store excels at providing this engagement, and engagement leads to higher customer satisfaction and hence value.  In addition, we find that offline marketing communication, specifically direct mail, enhances the likelihood the customer buys fit products offline and hence migrates customers to the high-value state, or keeps them at high value if they are already there. Our findings identify a strategic role that fit products and retail stores play in customer development, and show that marketing can help implement this strategy.

Scott Neslin

Scott A. Neslin is the Albert Wesley Frey Professor of Marketing at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College.  He has been a visiting scholar at the Yale School of Management, the Fuqua School of Business, and Columbia Business School. Professor Neslin’s expertise is in the fields of customer relationship management, measurement of marketing effectiveness, sales promotion, and advertising.  He has published several papers on these topics in leading academic journals.  He is co-author with Robert C. Blattberg and Byung-Do Kim of the book, Database Marketing:  Analyzing and Managing Customers, co-authors with Robert C. Blattberg of the book, Sales Promotion: Concepts, Methods, and Strategies, and author of the Marketing Science Institute monograph, Sales Promotion. Professor Neslin has served as President of the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science (ISMS) and is an ISMS Fellow.

The Impact of Soda Taxes on Nutritional Intake and Welfare

Stephan Seiler, Anna Tuchman, Song Yao

Price-based interventions are widely considered by policy makers as a tool to shift customers’ behavior. This paper investigates one such policy intervention where a local government imposed a tax on sweetened beverages in order to discourage unhealthy food consumption and fight obesity and diet-related diseases. Through an extensive set of analyses, we document the effect of the tax on retailers’ pricing decisions and market demand for taxed products and substitutes. We show that the tax on sweetened beverages has had limited effects in reducing total consumption or leading to a shift in consumption towards healthier products. Furthermore, the financial burden is the highest for low income households, while higher income households avoid the tax by driving to stores outside the taxed zone.

YAO Song

Song Yao is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. Professor Yao has won the 2012  Paul Green Best Paper Award and the 2009 John Howard Dissertation Award, both of which are sponsored by the American Marketing Association. He was the finalist for INFORMS Long Term Impact Award in 2017, the Frank Bass Outstanding Dissertation Award in 2011 and 2012, the John Little Best Paper Award in 2009 and 2011. He has also been selected by the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) as one of the MSI Young Scholars of 2017. He serves on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, and Quantitative Marketing and Economics. Professor Yao’s research interests include quantitative marketing, online marketing, advertising, pricing, and customer management. His publications appear in leading academic journals, including Management Science, Marketing Science, the Journal of Marketing Research, and Quantitative Marketing and Economics. Professor Yao received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from Duke University, M.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and B.A. in Economics from the Renmin University of China.

Oriana- Company information across the Asia-Pacific region in the trial

2014-04-21

ORIANA is a comprehensive database containing financial information on over 20 million public and private companies in 46 countries including the Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions. Each company is part of a default peer group based on its activity codes; integral graphs and a specific report demonstrate its position in this peer group. A company tree diagram instantly illustrates the structure of the group.

 

Language  Chinese/English

Trial Period  Until Dec 31, 2014

Access:   https://oriana.bvdep.com/ip (On campus)

Update:  Daily

 

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