SHENZHEN, Sep. 22, 2026 — College of Management, SZU (SZUCM)The 44th Young Scientists Forum of the College of Management, SZU took place in the Lecture Hall B104, Mingli Building on the Lihu Campus from 9:30 to 12:00 on September 21, 2026. Hosted by Professor Chen Xingyu, Vice Dean of SZUCM, the forum invited four distinguished overseas and domestic scholars as keynote speakers: Professor Cai Zhao from the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Associate Professor Ray Y. Zhong from the University of Hong Kong, Associate Professor Yang Zheshuai from Zhejiang University, and Assistant Professor Tang Chuang from Peking University HSBC Business School. The four scholars delivered presentations on cutting-edge topics: video-aided systems in emergency dispatch, digital-twin-enabled trading of urban construction and demolition waste, compulsory education and women’s reproductive health, and gamified community leaderboards and user-generated content. More than 30 faculty members and students attended the event, where in-depth discussions created a vibrant academic atmosphere.

Professor Cai Zhao serves as Professor of Information Systems, Head of the Department of Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Management Systems, and Executive Director of the Nottingham China Health Institute at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. His research covers digital platform competition, digital supply chain management and digital health. His work has appeared in leading journals including MIS Quarterly, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and Journal of the Association for Information Systems. He is Managing Editor of Industrial Management & Data Systems and Associate Editor of Internet Research, and has served repeatedly as track chair and associate editor for major international conferences. He has received awards such as the PACIS Best Short Paper Award, AOM Best Paper Award and AOM Carolyn Dexter Award, as well as Outstanding Associate Editor honours from Internet Research, ICIS and ECIS. His talk examined how video support systems affect dispatcher efficiency at pre-hospital emergency call centres. Drawing on cognitive load theory and a natural experiment with 28,509 call records, his staggered difference-in-differences study found that the video tool improved the identification rate of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest yet lengthened average call duration and reduced operational efficiency. Further analysis revealed that dispatcher experience amplifies this efficiency loss, while decision fatigue prompts simplified decision-making to mitigate the decline. Practical suggestions covering interface design, tiered training and shift scheduling were proposed.

Associate Professor Ray Y. Zhong is based in the Department of Data and Systems Engineering at the University of Hong Kong. Previously at the University of Auckland, he has secured over HK$30 million in research funding from bodies including the Research Grants Council and Innovation and Technology Commission of Hong Kong. A globally recognised scholar in systems analysis, he ranks among the top researchers worldwide in building informatics, manufacturing systems and big data analytics. He has published more than 300 journal and conference papers, with over 27,000 Google Scholar citations (H-index:77, i10-index:220, as of 9 September 2026). He was named a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in 2025 and is an IEEE Senior Member. He also holds editorial roles for journals such as Computers & Industrial Engineering and International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing. His presentation addressed digital trading mechanisms for construction and demolition waste (CDW). To tackle poor digitalisation, information silos and weak market circulation, he introduced a “4+1” digital twin framework consisting of physical, data, virtual, service layers plus an interaction loop. The framework bridges waste generators and recyclers, and models logistics, capital and information flows within the CDW reverse supply chain. A hybrid governance model combining government coordination and market-based trading was proposed for cross-regional disposal, alongside a prototype trading system integrating IoT and robotics.

Associate Professor Yang Zheshuai is on the Marketing faculty at Zhejiang University’s School of Management. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in marketing from Renmin University of China. His research focuses on prosocial and health behaviours, applying causal identification strategies such as quasi-natural experiments and instrumental variables to assess how non-health public policies shape health outcomes. His work has been published in top journals including Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Journal of Consumer Research. Using China’s Compulsory Education Law of 1986 as a quasi-natural experiment and cervical cancer screening records of over 1.07 million women, his study found that women who received compulsory education in childhood showed a significantly lower HPV infection risk around 30 years later; each additional educational attainment reduced the HPV positivity rate by 5.9 percentage points, with stronger effects in less socioeconomically developed counties. Path analysis indicated that education lowers risk by reshaping sexual exposure patterns and boosting health literacy, demonstrating education policy as an upstream intervention for cervical cancer prevention.

Assistant Professor Tang Chuang is a marketing scholar at Peking University HSBC Business School. He obtained his PhD in Marketing from the National University of Singapore. His research interests span digital marketing, platform economics, artificial intelligence, and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). He employs causal inference, structural modelling and field experiments, with publications in premier journals including Marketing Science and Information Systems Research. His projects are supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, and his papers have won multiple best-paper awards. His teaching portfolio covers platform economics, marketing research and pricing strategy, and he has published teaching cases in the Ivey Publishing case collection. He received the HSBC Business School Outstanding Research and Teaching Award in 2023 and was selected into the Shenzhen High-level Talent Programme in 2019. His presentation investigated the impact of gamified community leaderboards on user content generation. Based on a natural experiment from a social media platform, his difference-in-differences analysis showed that leaderboards increased the volume of original posts and comments, while quality effects were asymmetric: comment quality dropped significantly, whereas original post quality remained stable, suggesting users strategically preserve quality for content that represents community identity. Heterogeneity tests showed the effect is stronger among users with higher social identification and follows a U-shaped relationship with community size.

The Young Scientists Forum is a flagship academic initiative of SZUCM. It builds a regular dialogue platform connecting local faculty and students with leading scholars worldwide. The four presentations in this session spanned digital health and operations, smart cities and sustainable operations, education and public health, as well as platform economics and user behaviour, showcasing strong interdisciplinary features and offering fresh ideas for research design. Moving forward, SZUCM will continue to leverage this platform to advance interdisciplinary innovation in artificial intelligence and human-machine collaboration, digital marketing and consumer behaviour, and decision science, supporting disciplinary development, faculty growth and talent cultivation.

Contributed by: Wang HuiruReviewed by: Chen XingyuTranslated and reedited by Zhang Ruina, International Development Office, SZUCM