Dr. Sara Kim awarded HKU Outstanding Young Researcher 2018-19
Dr. Sara Kim, Associate Professor of Marketing, Faculty of Business and Economics was recognised as one of the winners of the Outstanding Young Researcher Award (OYRA) 2018-19. The award aims to recognise young researchers for their outstanding research accomplishments at the University of Hong Kong.
Dr. Kim has made a great impact in her research. She has been collaborating with different companies in China and Korea to put her research findings into practice.
When talking about her research, Dr. Kim said, “I have built a new area examining computerised helpers in mobile games and education software. My research also provides new insights on prosocial behaviour and service marketing. For instance, two of my papers provide important insights on the development of digital assistants for marketers, software designers, and educators. I am also collaborating with two Korean companies to implement real world business strategies based on my findings in these papers. I also collaborated with a Chinese e-commerce firm to implement service strategies for their frontline employees.”
OYRA is determined on the basis of documented evidence of international recognition of research accomplishments, quality and quantity of research publications, ability to compete for research grants, taking into account the prestige of the funding bodies and the size of the grants awarded, and impact of the research work. Only applicants under age 40 will be considered.
Dr. Kim’s research focus is on consumer and managerial decision making and its implications for marketing management. She is particularly interested in antecedents of consumers’ sense of self, including self-affirmation, identity threats, mortality salience, and implicit theories of personality, and the impact of consumers’ sense of self on various consumer judgments and behaviours such as consumer emotions, word-of-mouth, prosocial behaviour, and anthropomorphism. Her work has appeared in renowned publications such as Journal of Consumer Research and Psychological Science, and reported by international media such as New York Times, Time, Science Daily, and Medical News Today.
