Page 125 - Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program Proceedings 2017-18

School of Business and Management
Department of Management

Department of Management

Human Decision Making and Strategic Behavior in Social Systems

Supervisor: DANIELS David Peter / MGMT
Student: CHEN Pei / SSCI Course: UROP1000, Summer

Quantitative models and machine learning methods have become popular in social science researches in recent years.
We survey one such method, Structural Topic Model, and apply it to a data set which captures how people evaluate
different strategies in a classic game theory setting. A preliminary analysis of the effect of different strategies and
respondents’ background then follows. This report reviews the origin and mechanism of Structural Topic Model,
describes the experiment that yields the data set and presents the result of the analysis that illustrates the merit of the
method.

Supervisor: DANIELS David Peter / MGMT
Student: HANDAYA Clara Louisa / GBUS Course: UROP1100, Spring

Demographically different people tend to face a vital challenge in nurturing supportive relationships in organizations,
and thus affecting performance and efficiency in task completion. This is further amplified when the diversity
distribution within groups are not as equally distributed. Based on survey responses, this report examines the various
reasons why and how diversity can affect workplace effectivity. Common reasons for these differing behaviors include
the subconscious instinct to seek approval from group members which will be affected by surface-level diversity which is
imminent at first observation. This report will discuss in light of their implications for organizational workgroups in which
contribution of expertise is critical to group performance.

Supervisor: DANIELS David Peter / MGMT
Student: HO Chun Yin Patrick / FINA Course: UROP1100, Spring

This research aims to explore the influence of conspicuousness to branded goods to employment decisions. It is
discovered that branded goods users are generally less preferred by recruiters. Three factors of organizational
characteristics, gender, and age are studied to provide more details of the relationship. Whereas organizational
backgrounds have limited impacts, females have more negative attitudes towards luxury product consumers than males,
while younger people have more positive attitudes towards them. Brief explanations are provided to justify the research
outcome, and the paper concludes with discussing its limitations and room for further research.

Supervisor: DANIELS David Peter / MGMT
Student: PARK Seo Hyun / GBUS Course: UROP1100, Spring

This paper explores the hypothesis that people’s willingness to approach strangers change according to whether they
are accompanied by someone with interest in the same question. The experiment classifies approaching strangers as
asking them for directions on the street. 135 participants were given three different situations at random, the first with
the participant with no companion, the second has a companion with shared interest in the question to be asked to the
stranger, and the third with an indifferent companion. The result shows that people are most likely when accompanied
by a companion with a shared interest on the answer.

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