HKUST Annual Report 2024-2025

37 L A B T O M A R K E T Optimizing Ideas Generated from Crowdsourcing Contests Crowdsourcing contests that allow firms to seek ideas from external contributors (“solvers”) to address their problems are growing in popularity. Yet solvers’ relationships with firms and peers within the crowd can be complex. To better understand the dynamics at work, Prof. Tat Koon KOH (Information Systems, Business Statistics and Operations Management) studied how solvers use feedback on their ideas and the behaviors involved. The research also proposed a feedback evaluation mechanism designed to encourage solvers to behave more optimally for firms in the critical aspect of idea quality, enabling companies to better benefit from the wisdom of the crowd. HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCE Bridging Cultures Through Literature In Transpatial Modernity: Chinese Cultural Encounters with Russia via Japan (1880–1930) , Prof. MA Xiaolu (Humanities) explores the relationship between Chinese, Japanese, and Russian literature in the early 20th century. The monograph traces how tropes from Russian literature entered Chinese literature via the writings of Japanese authors, providing pioneering in-depth insights into East Asian cultural exchange and modernity. The monograph received an Honorable Mention in the Anna Balakian Prize awarded by the International Comparative Literature Association, the premier global scholarly association for researchers in comparative literature. Charting Love and Societal Relations in China Prof. WU Shengqing (Humanities) and Prof. HOU Yue (Social Science) spent 2024–25 in the U.S. after gaining prestigious fellowships. Supported by the Luce East Asia Fellowship at the National Humanities Center, Prof. Wu worked on her next book, Reconfiguring Intimacy: Touch and Modern Love in China . Her research provides fresh perspectives on how transnational flows of text and images “reinvented” romantic love. Prof. Hou became one of six W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellows at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, selected from applicants worldwide. She progressed on her next book project, focusing on how governments and businesses in China collaborate to provide public services.