China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)
What is your current role and institution, and what courses do you teach?
I am a Professor of Management at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), where I teach in the Executive MBA and executive education programs. My teaching and research focus on strategic human resource management, organizational behavior, and organizational transformation.
In recent years, I have taught courses and modules on Strategic HRM, Business Strategy and Behavioral Reflection, Leadership and Organizational Change, and Talent Management in the Digital Era. Much of my teaching is designed for senior executives, entrepreneurs, HR leaders, and general managers, with a strong emphasis on connecting management theory with the lived challenges of organizational and talent development.
I am the Founding Academic Director of the CEIBS Chief Human Resources Officer Program, which has been running for nine years. The program is dedicated to developing HR leaders and senior executives who seek deeper strategic insight into organization, people, and leadership. I also serve as the Founding Academic Director of the CEIBS Center for Organization Growth and Talent Development.
How did you come to pursue a career in management education? Was there a pivotal moment or person that shaped your path?
My graduate study at Cornell ILR had a very important influence on me. The ILR faculty gave me a broader way to think about work, organizations, employment relationships, and human capital. What I learned was not only theory and research methods, but also an integrated view of management. I came to understand that compensation is not just about pay levels or pay structures. It is also a signal of what an organization values, how it defines fairness, and how it recognizes contribution and performance.
In strategic HRM seminars, I learned to see people not simply as “resources” to be allocated, but as individuals with knowledge, motivation, relationships, identity, and dignity. I also learned that organizational effectiveness is never only about strategy or structure. It depends on whether the employment system, incentives, capabilities, leadership, and broader institutional context fit together. ILR also shaped my understanding of international labor markets and industrial relations. It helped me see labor issues not only as HR questions, but also as institutional, comparative, and global challenges shaped by firms, governments, unions, and changing models of work. These intellectual traditions have continued to influence the way I teach executives and HR leaders.
Another important influence has been my teaching journey at CEIBS. CEIBS was founded during China’s reform and opening-up, at a time when the Chinese economy was beginning its remarkable transformation. From the beginning, the school has been closely connected with China’s economic development and the growth of Chinese enterprises.
At CEIBS, I have been fortunate to learn from many outstanding colleagues. Through their teaching, research, and engagement with practice, they helped educate generations of managers, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, making important contributions to Chinese companies and the broader economy.
This experience showed me that management education is not only an academic profession, but also a meaningful way to contribute to society. It shaped my hope that, through teaching, I can help business leaders think more deeply about people, organizations, fairness, responsibility, and long-term value.
What is your teaching philosophy?
I believe good teaching should help learners clarify complexity, question their existing mental models, and translate new insights into action. For me, the best classroom is one where theory, case discussion, personal reflection, and managerial practice reinforce one another, so that participants leave not only with useful frameworks, but also with deeper judgment and a stronger capacity to act wisely.
How does your university’s culture or student population influence the way you teach?
CEIBS is a very distinctive teaching environment because our students are deeply embedded in fast-changing business contexts. Many of them are founders, senior executives, CHROs, or functional leaders who are managing growth, transformation, globalization, digitalization, and now AI-driven disruption.
This means that teaching at CEIBS must be both rigorous and highly relevant. Our students respect theory, but they also ask: “What does this mean for my company in three months?” We need to build a bridge between theories and the immediate challenges in various contexts.
The diversity of our participants also matters. In one classroom, we may have executives from state-owned enterprises, private entrepreneurial firms, multinationals, technology companies, manufacturing firms, and service businesses. This diversity allows the classroom itself to become a living case laboratory. Students learn not only from me, but from each other’s experience.
What is your favorite classroom innovation or teaching technique?
For me, the best learning happens when executives’ real experience meets a strong conceptual framework. They bring the reality; I bring the language and structure to help them make sense of it. When someone says, “Now I understand why this keeps happening in my company,” I feel the teaching has really worked.
I also try to begin with the real problems executives are facing, such as growth bottlenecks, organizational change, incentive issues, leadership development, digitalization, globalization, or cultural integration. Then I bring in the theories and frameworks that can help them understand these problems better.
Another approach I value is using cases I have developed myself, especially cases on Chinese and Asian companies. Because many of these cases come from fieldwork, interviews, and direct observation, I can bring more context into the classroom — the company’s history, the leader’s personality, the internal tensions, and the real difficulties behind decisions. This makes the case feel more alive.
Many executives are very experienced, but they may not always notice how they make decisions, influence others, or work in teams. So in class, I like to use videos, surveys, peer feedback, and observation data to help them “see themselves in action.” This turns the classroom into a mirror. Participants are not just learning about leadership; they are reflecting on their own leadership.
What teaching advice would you give to an early-career educator?
My advice would be to respect both theory and students’ lived experience. Especially when teaching executives, the classroom should not be a place where the teacher simply gives answers, but a space where good questions help participants rethink their own assumptions.
For example, when teaching compensation, I may begin with a simple managerial question: “Why does the same bonus plan motivate some employees but disappoint others?” This allows students to connect theories of fairness, motivation, and incentives with real situations they have faced in their organizations. For early-career educators, I would say: do not worry too much about having the perfect answer. Focus on building meaningful dialogue, using frameworks to clarify experience, and using experience to enrich theory. That is where real learning happens.