Conference Proceedings
Gu, H., Rahrovani Y, Austin R. (2022). Digital Technology in Design Driven Innovation: Case studies in Electric Vehicles. Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Copenhagen, Denmark.
Gu, H., Rahrovani Y, Austin R. (2022). Meaning Innovation with Digital Technology in the Case of Electric Vehicles: A Design and Feedback Perspective. Proceedings of the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (AOM), Seattle, WA.
Gu, H., Rahrovani Y, Austin R. (2021). Role of Digital Technology in Product Meaning Innovation: A Design Perspective. Proceedings of the 81st Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (AOM), Virtual.
Gu, H., Rahrovani Y. (2019). Designer Adaptation: A Feedback Perspective. Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Munich, Germany.
Neufeld, D.J., Gu, H. (2019). Leadership Emergence and Impact on Open Source Software Project Success: A Comparative Case Study. Proceedings of the 79th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (AOM), Boston, MA.
Doctoral Consortia
- ICIS 2022 and AoM CTO Division 2021
Dissertation Research
In my thesis, I study how designers innovate meaning with digital technology. I define product meaning as an impression conveyed collectively by a defining set of functional and/or aesthetic qualities of a product that cause it to be perceived as a particular kind of product. With qualitative case studies in the context of electric vehicles (EV), I conceptualize different mechanisms of innovating meaning with digital technology. My contributions are two-fold. One is to make a distinction between innovation in meaning and in functions or aesthetics with digital technology. Innovation in product meaning with digital technology is an important but overlooked aspect of product innovation in IS. The other is to take a designer-centric perspective. I argue that designers innovate product meaning and propose innovative meaning to users with digital technology, in addition to improving product function and aesthetics to fit user preferences.
I will publish a series of journal papers about innovating meaning with digital technology from my thesis, given I have written all seven chapters.
Work in Progress
My second research project is about designers’ strategies to reach optimal distinctiveness in radical product innovation. While the importance of optimal distinctiveness at the product level has been generally acknowledged in IS and strategy research, less attention has been focused on more detailed product dimensions level. I used archival case studies to explore how designers manipulate uncertainties to deliver a coherent product design. This project is in the theorizing stage and is expected to submit to an IS top journal by Dec 2022.
My third research project is titled Recombining Innovative Technologies with Multiple Application Scenarios: Cases of Virtual-Reality Devices. All interviews have been transcribed, I am now analyzing primary case data. I plan to finish the data analysis for this paper by spring 2023 and submit it by fall 2023 to a top IS journal.
My fourth research project is under review with Neufeld, D. The paper is related to leadership emergence in Open Source Software context.