December 16, 2019. Shanghai – We learned a lot from CEIBS faculty in 2019 as our professors contributed a wealth of insights on a wide range of business and management-related topics. Below, we revisit some of the most read CEIBS Knowledge articles from this year.

Just in time for Women’s Day, CEIBS Professor of Management Jean Lee looked back at some of the changes China has experienced over the past forty years, how the role of Chinese women has evolved and how women leaders have left their unique imprints on the development of doing business in China over that time.

Online retailers accounted for 20% of total sales of consumer goods in China last year, with Alibaba and JD.com capturing three quarters of the market share between them. In April, CEIBS Assistant Professor of Marketing Lin Chen examined some of the factors driving China’s e-commerce marketplace and whether or not any new players could break the existing oligopoly.

Despite huge production costs and higher logistics costs than many of its peers, Zara continued to lead the fast fashion industry in profitability in 2019. In this article, CEIBS Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management Zhao Xiande took a closer look at the company’s supply chain system and to find out what lessons Chinese businesses could learn from the international clothing retailer.

Leaders who appear authentic in the workplace are more likely to gain the trust of subordinates, cultivate open communication, and boost organisational development, but what types of leaders are perceived by employees as authentic? In 2019, CEIBS Assistant Professor of Management Michelle Zheng co-authored this paper which took a deep dive into the ways employees judge leaders’ authenticity.

When Costco unveiled its first store in Shanghai in September, the company’s opening day in China was a scene of chaos – shelves were emptied within an hour, cars had to wait 3 hours to find a parking place, and customers had to queue for two hours at checkouts. In the aftermath of the enormous shopping spree, CEIBS Professor of Marketing Fang Er penned this article on decoding the country’s Costco frenzy.

While there is growing recognition of Chinese companies’ intent to enhance their innovation capabilities, this shift is still very much work in progress and one that managers and entrepreneurs from other parts of the world ought to take note of. In line with this trend, CEIBS Associate Professor of International Business and Strategy Shameen Prashantham wrote this piece on how businesses can leverage China for global innovation.

The positive outcomes of human resource management (HRM) practices, work structures and other processes designed to enhance employee knowledge, skills, attitudes and motivation have been supported by numerous studies, but evidence also indicates that they can also exert negative effects. Earlier this year, CEIBS Associate Professor of Management Han Jian co-wrote this paper examining why some HRM practices have negative effects and when these negative effects occur.

With China becoming a world leader in terms of investment in financial technology, CEIBS Professor of Finance and Accounting Oliver Rui published this article in September in which he asked the question, is fintech poised to replace brick-and-mortar finance?

Also picking up on some of the current trends in e-commerce in 2019, Professor of Economics and Decision Sciences Fang Yue contributed this column in which he offered numerous insights into how businesses can generate value for customers in today’s digital economy.

Finally, previous studies into the degree of compatibility between employee and job characteristics, while enlightening, have largely treated the relation between them as static. In this article, CEIBS Professors Tae-Yeol Kim and Sebastian C. Schuh teamed up with Shanghai University of Finance & Economics’ Yahua Cai to extend this area of research by exploring how changes in person-job fit affect employee work attitudes over time.

For more research papers and columns from CEIBS faculty, please visit our CEIBS Knowledge page here.