Our final-year FinTech student, Mr. Chung Yiu Wing, Brian, won the Outstanding Interdisciplinary Research Proposal Award. This competition is open to all full-time undergraduate and postgraduate students studying in Hong Kong Shue Yan University. Mentored by Dr. Philip Lee, Brian’s proposal “The Influence of Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) on Crisis Responses: A Case Study of JPEX Scandal in Hong Kong” received positive feedback from the judges of the competition and won the Award against other undergraduate counterparts.

Drawing on Kübler-Ross and Kessler’s five stages of grief theory, the proposed study aims to address the question of how decentralized finance (DeFi) investors respond to a financial crisis under the influence of KOLs whose financial advisory actions are not heavily regulated. Specifically, this study will adopt a qualitative, case-study approach to interpret how people responded to the JPEX scandal in Hong Kong under the influence of KOLs across time. Online textual data, such as posts and comments of social media users and KOLs, and news reports published by the mass media and government bodies will be analyzed.

Our department would like to take this opportunity to thank Graduate School for organizing this meaningful event. It encourages our students to explore literature from other disciplines and propose interesting, interdisciplinary research ideas. It also cultivates an interest in research among students.