Academic Events

Prof. Amy Ou

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

This talk presents a work-in-progress on interpersonal chemistry on social media. Using a dataset of 20 million tweets from 7,255 entrepreneurs and 3,251 investors, our study shows that chemistry increases the likelihood of forming initial investment relationships, especially for disadvantaged entrepreneurs who are geographically distant from investors or belong to gender or racial minority groups. While the findings are promising, the paper sits at an uncomfortable intersection: it can be framed as strategy research on tie formation or as organizational behavior research proposing a new psychological construct. As an OB scholar venturing into entrepreneurship, I have struggled to find the right disciplinary home and theoretical framing for this work. In this talk, I share the paper's core findings and the behind-the-scenes challenges of positioning it across fields. I invite feedback and suggestions from strategy and OB colleagues on framing, hypotheses, and analyses, particularly on how to sharpen the theoretical contribution to earn a spot in a top journal.

Dr. Amy Ou is an Associate Professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s Department of Management and Marketing. She is the associate editor at Journal of Management, senior editor at Management and Organization Review, and a member of the editorial review board at Organization Science. With a PhD from Arizona State University, her research focuses on strategic leadership (CEO humility), organizational culture, women’s leadership, and cross-cultural management. Her work appears in top journals like Organization Science, Administrative Science Quarterly and Academy of Management Journal. Awarded the Alvah H. Chapman Jr. Outstanding Dissertation Award and best paper prizes, her CEO humility research has been featured in Forbes China, USA Today, and The Business Times.