28 October 2021, CUFE Business School held the 9thSession of the 2021 CUFE Business School Distinct Academic Forum.Professor Erick Zhaolin Lifrom University of Sydney,was invited to give the speech. Faculty members, postgraduate and undergraduate students from CUFE Business School were attended. Professor Qian Cheng from Department of Supply Chain and Operations Management hosted the forum.
Professor Erick Zhaolin Li received his PhD degree from Penn State University.ProfessorLi’smain research fields includes supply chain management, operation management and cross-discipline research.Professor Li’s research papers were published on top journals such as Management Science, Production & Operations Management, Decision Sciences, European Journal of Operations Research.Professor Li was rewarded the Asia’ s top scholars in Operations Management in 2017.
The topic of Professor Li’s speech was “Robust Optimal Contract for Start-up Financing: A Theoretical and Experimental Investigation”. The study establishes robust ethical risk models for situations where entrepreneurs and investors simultaneously face limited information on investment returns. When entrepreneurs have the power to draft contracts, entrepreneurs prefer equity financing with limited information. Instead, when investors have the power to draft contracts, they would prefer to choose a combination of debt and equity under limited information. The study also performed laboratory experiments to test whether these two predictions were valid. Experimental data support the above predictions. The findings have managerial implications for startups’ choice between debt financing and equity financing.
In the communication session, Professor Li answered questions and discussed issues with faculty and students. The interaction had greatly promoted academic exchange.
