Analyzing Impact
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of e-commerce within the retail marketplace dramatically expanded. Consumers confined to their homes turned to their computers, tablets, and smartphones to purchase everything from fitness equipment to office furniture, encompassing items traditionally not bought online, such as groceries. This surge in online grocery shopping particularly intrigued Dr. Li, Associate Professor.
As a marketing researcher, Li specializes in utilizing data to examine contemporary marketing issues. With a background in computer science, he frequently employs advanced technologies, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), to sift through massive data sets and unearth valuable business insights.
Case in point: with his intrigued interest in online grocery shopping, Li and his co-author have been developing a comprehensive and rigorous geo-spatial model. This model aims to delineate the geographic reach of grocery stores that provide e-commerce services, as well as to identify the distinct behaviors of grocery shoppers when they choose online versus in-store shopping. Despite the technical challenges and time-consuming nature of this work, Li says this study is crucial for understanding the role of e-commerce in grocery retail, particularly in the post- COVID new era.
“The complexity of the model, coupled with the vast datasets required to estimate it, precludes the use of a personal computer. Fortunately, Wake Forest University is equipped with an exceptional high-performance computing facility, the DEAC Cluster, dedicated to research. High-Performance Computing (HPC) utilizes a network of computer systems, configuring them to operate in parallel to solve large, complex problems at very high speeds. With the support of our DEAC Cluster colleagues, we have successfully completed over 1.16 million tasks to date, utilizing nearly 1 million compute-hours and exceeding 300 TB of memory. To put this in context, these tasks would take 109 years to complete without the use of parallelization.”
Multidisciplinary studies also play a significant role in Li’s research. Many of his earlier publications in marketing have found strong resonance across various fields, including operations management, economics, organizational behavior, human resources, and strategy. Recently, he has grown increasingly interested in investigating the connections between marketing and critical societal issues. For example, one of his newly published papers examines how environmental factors, such as air pollution, influence consumer behavior. Another working paper explores the identification of new forms of stigma or biases based on geographic origin.
“Discrimination or stigma related to race, gender, and age is well-documented. In this study, we investigate
another potential source of stigma: geographic region. Our preliminary results not only confirm the existence of this new type of stigma but also suggest that it can influence how employees are evaluated by their supervisors in the workplace.”
Whenever possible, Li incorporates students in his research through assistantships. He currently mentors a group of Wake students from different programs who assist in research projects. Last year, he published a paper in the Journal of Marketing Analytics, coauthored with Rachel McCrary, who was a Wake Forest School of Business undergraduate student at the time. The paper outlines a project Li and McCrary did during the summer of 2020, when her scheduled internship was canceled due to the pandemic.
“Rachel and I used machine learning approaches to understand how a current event such as COVID could influence consumer perception of a company’s marketing communications messages,” he says. “This paper is one that I am most proud of because it perfectly embodies what I aim to achieve in our teacher-scholar model.”
Li applies his expertise beyond the campus community, as well. He has conducted several studies for local companies and brands such as Lowes Foods, Texas Pete, and West Rock, all through partnerships with the Wake Forest University Retail Learning Labs.
“These company engagement projects are all voluntarily initiated by me,” Li says. “The purpose is to engage our school’s partner and hope to make them even stronger partners of our school in the future.”
Li also has relationships with companies in China, such as retail giant Alibaba. He says these business relationships not only benefit the companies he works with, but they also give him greater insight into the actual needs of the marketplace. That insight allows his work to go beyond the theoretical to have a real-world impact on retail marketing around the globe.
“My goal is to make my research more industry-relevant,” he says. “So that’s why I try to always start a new project by talking to those in industry or at least have a good observation about what’s happening there. That allows me to be able to answer questions in a way that has a meaningful impact.”
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