Center for Digital Communication, Commerce and Culture Welcomes Second Research Fellow
April 25, 2018
Contact: Office of Government and Public Affairs
Phone: 410.837.5739
The University of Baltimore's Center for Digital Communication, Commerce and Culture (CD3C) welcomes Su Chao, a doctoral candidate in management studies and engineering from Dalian University of Technology in China, as its newest research fellow. Su's research interests are social media, social commerce, online consumer behavior, and experiment design. He will be working closely with Eusebio Scornavacca, Parsons Professor of Digital Innovation and director of the CD3C, as he works on his thesis.
Su Chao's current research looks at a dual-role trust model in social commerce on mobile social media through the lens of Guanxi—a concept rooted in Confucianism, based on a particular dynamic of interpersonal relationships, which effects Chinese business and social culture broadly.
"Digital platforms like WeChat and Alibaba are disrupting a number of industries and revolutionizing well-established supply chains and enabling new forms of retail," Su said. "I feel privileged to have received funding from my home institution to come to UB's Center for Digital Communication, Commerce and Culture for one year. Prof. Scornavacca, who is an internationally recognized scholar in the field of digital business, has the cultural understanding that is essential for this research project."
"It is a pleasure to have Su Chao with us," said Scornavacca. "His work will contribute to our center's fundamental role, which is to act as an interdisciplinary catalyst for digital innovation at the University. It will also strength our partnership with Dalian University of Technology, one of the top 15 universities in China."
Scornavacca has collaborated with Prof. Qinfei Min, Chao's doctoral supervisor in Dalian, for the past 10 years. The team has been recently awarded a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China to support a four-year research project on Social Commerce Platforms in China.
This is part of a bigger picture of global engagement for CD3C. Just last week, Scornavacca hosted Panu Kalmi from the University of Vaasa, Finland, as part of a collaborative effort in developing mobile games promoting financial literacy.
Learn more about the Center for Digital Communication, Commerce and Culture.
Learn more about Prof. Eusebio Scornavacca.