On the afternoon of November 14, the Industrial Economics discipline of our institute hosted a Young Scholars' Salon. The keynote speaker was Dr. Xu Heng, Associate Professor, Ph.D. Supervisor, and Deputy Director of the Law and Business Management Department at the School of Business, China University of Political Science and Law.
The topic of Dr. Xu Heng's lecture was "Traffic-Driven or Innovation-Driven? Analyzing Corporate Competition Strategies and Consumer Welfare from the Perspective of Network Effects." Dr. Xu provided an in-depth analysis of consumer preferences for differentiated product information traffic and examined whether companies, when able to attract more customers and increase profits through investments in traffic, might deprioritize competitive strategies such as innovation that improve product performance and quality. Based on this analysis, he proposed optimization strategies and recommendations for platform operations, including lowering barriers to corporate innovation, enhancing competition in platform markets, and expanding the scale of product information dissemination. Following the lecture, Dr. Xu Heng engaged in further in-depth discussions and exchanges with the faculty and students participating in the salon on related topics. The session was chaired by Professor Du Chuanzhong, Director of the Industrial Economics Research Institute. Professor Liu Weilin, Vice Dean of the institute, and Professor Pang Ruizhi, Director of the Enterprise Research Center, provided insightful commentary on the presentation.
The "Nankai Institute of Economics Young Scholars' Salon" is a purely academic platform for intellectual exchange, designed specifically for young scholars. Each session features outstanding young experts and scholars who engage in discussions open to all faculty and students. Through this series of lectures, the salon aims to foster communication and collaboration between internal and external resources, broaden the academic horizons of the institute’s faculty and students, and enhance the institute's academic influence.
