On the afternoon of April 22, 2025, CUFE Business School successfully held the Seventh Lecture of the School of Business Academic Excellence Lecture Theatre 2025 in Conference Room 615 of the Main Teaching Building of the South College Road Campus, which is also one of the important academic activities of “Key Journals College Tour” launched by CUFE Business School in 2024. The lecture was also one of the important academic activities of “Key Journals College Walk” launched CUFE Business School in 2024. Professor Li Jiatao, Lee Kok Wai Chair Professor of Business at the School of Business of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, was invited to be the guest speaker. The event was attended by faculty members, doctoral students, master's students and scholars from other universities.
The meeting was hosted by Prof. Lin Song, Dean of CUFE Business School. Before the lecture, Prof. Lin Song introduced Prof. Li Jiatao's academic background in detail. Prof. Li Jiatao is currently the Chair Professor of the Department of Management, Director of the Center for Business Strategy and Innovation at the HKUST Business School, Senior Scholar of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at HKUST, and also a Cheung Kong Scholar Chair Professor. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of International Business (AIB) and served as AIB Vice President (2016-2019) and Chair of the 2018 Annual Conference. Currently, he serves as Associate Editor (2016-2025) of Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS), a leading journal of international business, and served as Strategic Management Journal (SMJ), a leading journal of strategic management, from 2009-2016 as an From 2009-2016, he served as Associate Editor of Strategic Management Journal (SMJ), a leading strategic management journal. In addition, Prof. Li was Senior Associate Dean (2013-2017), Associate Dean (2009-2013) and Head of the Department of Management (2006-2017) of the School of Business at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
The topic of Prof. Li Jiatao's lecture is “Concentration in Transnational Research Collaboration and Knowledge Creation of MNCs in Host Countries”. He discussed the impact of transnational cooperation within multinational corporations (MNCs) on knowledge creation from both theoretical and practical perspectives, focusing on the relationship between the concentration of transnational co-invention on a few inventors in the host country and local knowledge creation. The talk first reviews the managerial challenges faced by MNCs in knowledge creation on a global scale, and then illustrates the positive effects of concentration on knowledge creation and tests the hypotheses based on MNC-country-annual level data of US pharmaceutical MNCs from 1980 to 2008. At the end of the lecture, some future research directions on multinational cooperation and knowledge creation were proposed, which provided the participants with inspiration for deeper thinking.
After the lecture, the participating students and faculty discussed the topics shared by Prof. Li Jiatao on knowledge management of multinational corporations, the use of research methodology, the challenges of data analysis, and the academic trends in the field of international business, which further promoted the exchange and collision of academic ideas.
“The Academic Excellence Forum is an academic exchange platform established by CUFE Business School in order to fulfill its mission of “contributing to the new knowledge of management”, aiming to focus on the cutting-edge theoretical issues and organizational development dilemmas in the discipline of business administration and the practice of Chinese enterprises, and to bring together cutting-edge ideas and innovative perspectives from home and abroad to explore Chinese solutions for China's social and economic development. The purpose of the platform is to bring together cutting-edge ideas and innovative perspectives from home and abroad to explore Chinese solutions for China's social and economic development.
