Digital transformation has emerged as a critical driver of organizational success in the contemporary business landscape. As organizations strive to stay competitive and meet evolving customer demands, the adoption of digital technologies and the transformation of business processes have become essential. This thesis investigates the impact of digital transformation on operational efficiency in the context of Chinese-listed companies. It explores the relationship between digital transformation and operational efficiency, considering the moderating effects of industry context and existing operational efficiency-levels.

Utilizing Chinese-listed companies and textual analysis of the corresponding annual reports from 2010 to 2020, this thesis investigates the effects of digital transformation on firm- level-operational efficiency. The empirical findings of this study reveal that digital transformation has a significant and positive impact on operational efficiency in Chinese-listed companies. The results demonstrate that organizations investing in digital transformation initiatives gain higher levels of operational efficiency. This is achieved through the adoption of digital-technologies, process optimization, and enhanced decision-making capabilities. The study identifies several key factors contributing to this positive impact, including improved data analytics, automation, and integration of digital tools into various business functions.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are key business strategies used by companies to grow quickly. In particular, companies within the financial industry have been conducting M&A deals to acquire firms with high-tech capabilities to ride the Financial Technology (FinTech) trend and gain new competencies and offerings. The question around how to transform a financial firm into a FinTech firm is both an interesting and imperative one. Existing evidence shows that many financial firms achieve this by acquiring a high-tech player, thus transforming from a traditional financial institution into a “FinTech” firm. This thesis studies the post-acquisition performances of financial firms that acquire high-tech firms.

In this study, I focus on acquisitions of FinTech firms, although I also use the term “M&A” more generally as well, given this is how these deals are conventionally referred to. I examine the Cumulative Abnormal Returns (CAR) of financial acquirer firms over a short window following the acquisition deal announcements to understand whether market reactions are positive or negative in the short-run following deal announcements. Then, I examine the long-run performance of the financial acquirer companies by analyzing three performance measures: the acquirer firms’ Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), and Tobin’s Q. Finally, I also study how the geography of the target firms impact financial acquirer firms’ post-acquisition performances. This thesis studies how ROA, ROE and Tobin’s Q differ depending on whether a financial firm acquires a target player from the same country, or different country, as itself.

Tokenization is one of the key building blocks of today’s fintech economy. This thesis focuses on asset tokenization, specifically, real estate tokenization and investigates how it can solve some of the major land issues in Hong Kong and help build a smart city for Hong Kong. I propose five types of real estate tokenization. Three of them deal with the supply side of land/property market, and the other two serve as financial products, which help the matching of global funds with more investment opportunities according to the funds’ or investors’ risk appetites, expected returns and investment time horizons.

On the implementation part, I examine the use of direct issuance of tokens on blockchain, limited companies, trust, and limited partnership fund as structures for issuance of these real estate tokens. I also examine some typical types of real estate tokenization available in the market and review some overseas jurisdictions and what can be learned in Hong Kong.

I also suggest the use of China’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and in the future, Hong Kong’s newly proposed e-HKD rather than bitcoin, ethereum or other types of crypto-currency as the medium of exchange for various reasons.

This dissertation studies how Chinese consumers’ purchase intention for new energy vehicles is influenced by consumers’ environmental attitude, quality and environmental protection of new energy vehicles, test-drive services, and government policies that promote new energy vehicles. A research framework is proposed and hypotheses are developed and tested with survey data from 357 BYD Automobile consumers across China.

Using Structural Equation Modelling method, analysis of the data shows that the impact of consumers’ environmental attitude and environmental protection of new energy vehicles on purchase intention is mediated by consumers’ overall quality perception of the vehicles. Dealers’ provision of test drive services enhances the positive relationship between quality and purchase intention. Favorable government policies also prompt consumers’ purchase intention, but it does not moderate the relationship between quality and purchase intention. Implications of these results for marketing new energy vehicles are discussed.

Supply Chain development is not only facing unprecedented challenges but also infinite opportunities in the digital era; the application of AI, Mobile Internet and IOT etc. are accelerating the digitalization and reformation of the supply chain.

Many firms’ development are restricted by the incompatible condition of supply chain information transparency, working capital liquidity, logistics cost and supply chain risk-control methods etc. Meanwhile, many firms suffer from working capital shortage and high finance cost and desperately need financing resources, especially small and medium enterprises. In recent years, SCF is developing innovatively with the support of technology, playing active role in improving liquidity and efficiency of the entire supply chain.

Logistics, as an important factor of supply chain, closely connects transaction flow and finance flow, and provides information of the whole supply chain process. With the development of technology, digital logistics platform (DLP) became one of the important development areas of supply chain reformation and innovation, as well as the important support of Supply Chain Finance (SCF) development. By adopting technologies like IOT and AI, traditional logistics companies upgraded their existing management system to digital platform, which connected both supply chain partners and transboundary business ecology partners. In addition, logistics companies directly got involved in finance services by creating innovative financing products to users of digital logistics platform, act as a new Finance Service Provider (FSP).