Campus Digest

HKBU scholar wins Best Paper Award in international conference

28 Jul 2016

Professor Frank Fu, Chair Professor of Physical Education and Associate Vice-President of HKBU, won the Best Paper Award (second prize) at the China Market International Conference.

The award-winning paper entitled “Distance of Similarity: Assessing Mimic Product from Authentic Brand on Enculturation Conformance”, is a collaborative effort between Professor Fu, Dr David Pan and Professor Margaret Young of Texas Woman’s University, and Dr Alan Pan of University of North Texas in the US. The research also gained valuable support from the Dr Stephen Hui Research Centre for Physical Recreation and Wellness of HKBU.

Professor Fu said he was delighted to have the opportunity to conduct an interdisciplinary research project on branding of sports products. He added that professionals in the field of physical education should branch out to collaborate with members of other disciplines on research endeavours as it is a highly rewarding experience. 

The team conducted a contrarian study and asked consumers to compare top-of-the-line imitation brands with genuine brands using proposed conceptual approaches which enable consumers to transcend product information through perceptual similarity cataloguing, perceived ability of product to achieve a specific purpose, and general-context brand consistency, so that the brand becomes relevant in their mind through enculturation conformance. The study results validate the framework and reveal that consumers look beyond product functionality when assessing replicas against the original and their evaluation is largely determined by value congruence.