Yuen Kum Fai is a Singaporean academic specialising in maritime studies, strategy, and sustainable management.[1] He is currently an assistant professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is an appointed associate editor[2] for Maritime Policy & Management, which is indexed by Web of Science and the flagship journal of international shipping and port research run by Taylor & Francis. In addition, he is an advisory board member[3] for Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives owned by Elsevier. He is also an invited guest editor for the journal, Sustainability, on the special issue 'Sustainable Maritime Transportation Management and Policies',[4] and for Maritime Policy & Management on the special issue 'Artificial Intelligence & Big Data in Shipping'.[5] He is the recipient of the Inauguration Grant which is part of a Singapore Teaching and Academic Research Talent Scheme[6] that aims to attract Singaporean academics to join Singapore's autonomous universities as pre-tenure assistant professors. His research interests include sustainable shipping management, service quality, supply chain integration, transport economics, and technology and innovation management. As of Sep-2020, Yuen has published over 70 international journal papers.[7] According to Scopus, his h-index and citations are 17 and 663, respectively.[8]

Yuen Kum Fai
Yuen Kum Fai in 2017
Born
Singapore
NationalitySingaporean
EducationPhD, Bsc
Alma materNanyang Technological University
OccupationAssistant Professor
OrganisationNanyang Technological University
WorksMaritime Studies; Quality Management;
Sustainable Management;Organisational Performance;
Technology and Innovation Management
WebsiteFaculty Webpage

Education and career

edit

Tertiary education (2008 - 2017)

edit

In 2008, Yuen began his undergraduate studies, pursuing the maritime studies programme offered by Nanyang Technological University. He was in the Dean's List for two years (i.e. 2008 and 2011).[9] He participated in the Undergraduate Research Experience on CAmpus (URECA) which had sparked his interest in research and the desire to pursue a PhD. Nearing the completion of his bachelor's degree, he was awarded the Nanyang President's Graduate Scholarship, which offered him the opportunity to pursue a four-years PhD programme in Nanyang Technological University with full financial support and allowances. In June 2012, he graduated with a first-class honours.

In August 2012, he commenced his PhD studies with Vinh Thai. His initial research topic was related to solving supply chain quality management issues in the maritime industry. However, he made the decision to switch to sustainable shipping management, which was expected to be the key focus of the maritime industry for the next few decades. During the course of his PhD studies, he attended several international conferences organised by International Association of Maritime Economist and Quality Management and Organisational Development Conference. His conference papers presented at the latter were selected as best papers for two consecutive years in 2014 and 2015. Consequently, the papers were published in the special issues linked to the conference.[10][11] At the time of his graduation which was in July 2017, he had published several journal papers indexed by Web of Science.

Academic career (2017 - present)

edit

Yuen began his career as an assistant professor at Chung-Ang University, Seoul, South Korea. He spent two and a half years at the university teaching maritime transport, transport logistics and economics, innovation logistics, principle of economics, statistics, and multivariate data analysis in English. Subsequently, he moved to Nanyang Technological University in Jan 2020, teaching quality management in shipping, shipping and the environment, maritime economics and maritime strategy.

Academic contribution

edit

Yuen's research straddles across several management fields: quality management; consumer behaviour; sustainable management; technology and innovation management.

Quality management

edit

He introduces and tests the presence of interaction effects among service quality attributes.[12] The interactions are noted to contain additive, synergistic or compensatory effects on customer satisfaction. This finding supports and extends Kano model which mainly considers the linear and non-linear effects of an attribute but not the interaction effects of different attributes.

Consumer behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic

edit

He reviews the psychological causes influencing the spread of panic buying.[13] Panic buying is a niche area of consumer behavioural studies that has gained renewed attention from academics in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The review shows that panic buying is influenced by (1) perceived threat and scarcity of products;(2) fear of the unknown;(3) coping behaviour and (4) social influence and social trust. His comments on the causes for delays in delivery orders caused by the pandemic are also published on Today (Singapore newspaper).[14]

Sustainable management

edit

His research mainly links sustainable management with organisational performance. This includes examining its critical success factors,[15] antecedents,[16] contingency factors,[17][18] implementation strategy[19][20] and influence on stakeholders' satisfaction and loyalty.[21]

Technology and innovation management

edit

His research has examined the spread and management of innovation or technology adoption in a society in various contexts such as augmented reality applications, self-collection technologies[22][23] and autonomous vehicles[24]

References

edit
  1. ^ "Faculty Directory". Nanyang Technological University.
  2. ^ "Editorial Board". Maritime Policy & Management. Taylor & Francis.
  3. ^ "Editorial Board". Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Elsevier.
  4. ^ "Special Issue "Sustainable Maritime Transportation Management and Policies"". Sustainability. MDPI.
  5. ^ "Special Issues". Maritime Policy & Management. Taylor & Francis.
  6. ^ "DETAILS ABOUT THE VARIOUS START SCHEMES AND THE 2019 SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS" (PDF).
  7. ^ "Yuen Kum Fai - Google Scholar Citations". scholar.google.com.sg.
  8. ^ "Scopus preview - Scopus - Author details (Yuen, Kum Fai)". www.scopus.com. Elsevier. Retrieved 1 June 2020.
  9. ^ "Dean's List (with Academic Excellence Award)". Nanyang Technological University.
  10. ^ Yuen, Kum Fai; Thai, Vinh Van (2015). "Service quality and customer satisfaction in liner shipping". International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences. 7 (2/3): 170–183. doi:10.1108/IJQSS-02-2015-0024. hdl:10356/79385.
  11. ^ Yuen, Kum Fai; Thai, Vinh V.; Wong, Yiik Diew (2016). "Are customers willing to pay for corporate social responsibility? A study of individual-specific mediators". Total Quality Management & Business Excellence. 27 (7–8): 912–926. doi:10.1080/14783363.2016.1187992. hdl:10220/41897. S2CID 156298015.
  12. ^ Yuen, Kum Fai; Thai, Vinh (2017). "Service quality appraisal: a study of interactions". Total Quality Management & Business Excellence. 28 (7–8): 730–745. doi:10.1080/14783363.2015.1114881. hdl:10356/80833. S2CID 156575539.
  13. ^ Yuen, Kum Fai; Wang, Xueqin; Ma, Fei; Li, Kevin X. (2020). "The psychological causes of panic buying following a health crisis". International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 17 (10): 3513. doi:10.3390/ijerph17103513. PMC 7277661. PMID 32443427.
  14. ^ Lee Mandy (2020). "Covid-19 outbreak: Orders on e-commerce sites from China delayed, retailers there unresponsive". TODAYonline. Today.
  15. ^ Thi Minh Trang, Tran; Yuen, Kum Fai; Li, Kevin X.; Balci, Gokcay; Ma, Fei (2020). "A theory-driven identification and ranking of the critical success factors of sustainable shipping management". Journal of Cleaner Production. 243 (10): 118401. Bibcode:2020JCPro.24318401T. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118401. S2CID 203527145.
  16. ^ Yuen, Kum Fai; Wang, Xueqin; Wong, Yiik Diew; Zhou, Qingji (2017). "Antecedents and outcomes of sustainable shipping practices: The integration of stakeholder and behavioural theories". Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review. 108: 18–35. Bibcode:2017TRPE..108...18Y. doi:10.1016/j.tre.2017.10.002. hdl:10356/89996.
  17. ^ Yuen, Kum Fai; Thai, Vinh V.; Wong, Yiik Diew (2017). "Corporate social responsibility and classical competitive strategies of maritime transport firms: A contingency-fit perspective". Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. 98: 1–13. Bibcode:2017TRPA...98....1Y. doi:10.1016/j.tra.2017.01.020.
  18. ^ Yuen, Kum Fai; Wang, Xueqin; Wong, Yiik Diew; Ma, Fei (2019). "A contingency view of the effects of sustainable shipping exploitation and exploration on business performance". Transport Policy. 77: 90–103. doi:10.1016/j.tranpol.2019.03.004. S2CID 159184503.
  19. ^ Yuen, Kum Fai; Li, Kevin X.; Xu, Gangyan; Wang, Xueqin; Wong, Yiik Diew (2019). "A taxonomy of resources for sustainable shipping management: Their interrelationships and effects on business performance". Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review. 128: 316–332. Bibcode:2019TRPE..128..316Y. doi:10.1016/j.tre.2019.06.014. S2CID 198776311.
  20. ^ Surucu-Balci, Ebru; Balci, Gokcay; Yuen, Kum Fai (2020). "Social media engagement of stakeholders: A decision tree approach in container shipping". Computers in Industry. 115: 103152. doi:10.1016/j.compind.2019.103152. S2CID 211061589.
  21. ^ Yuen, Kum Fai; Thai, Vinh V.; Wong, Yiik Diew (2018). "An investigation of shippers' satisfaction and behaviour towards corporate social responsibility in maritime transport". Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. 116: 275–289. Bibcode:2018TRPA..116..275Y. doi:10.1016/j.tra.2018.06.027. hdl:10356/82861. S2CID 158980579.
  22. ^ Yuen, Kum Fai; Wang, Xueqin; Ng, Li Ting Wendy; Wong, Yiik Diew (2018). "An investigation of customers' intention to use self-collection services for last-mile delivery". Transport Policy. 66: 1–8. doi:10.1016/j.tranpol.2018.03.001. hdl:10356/89986. S2CID 158228022.
  23. ^ Yuen, Kum Fai; Wang, Xueqin; Ma, Fei; Wong, Yiik Diew (2019). "The determinants of customers' intention to use smart lockers for last-mile deliveries". Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 49: 316–326. doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.03.022. S2CID 169455614.
  24. ^ Yuen, Kum Fai; Wong, Yiik Diew; Ma, Fei; Wang, Xueqin (2020). "The determinants of public acceptance of autonomous vehicles: An innovation diffusion perspective". Journal of Cleaner Production. 270: 121904. Bibcode:2020JCPro.27021904Y. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121904. S2CID 219027038.