【Mingli lecture 2022, Issue 9】

Time: March 10 (Thursday) 9:00-10:30 am

Tencent conference number: 116 155 486

Speaker: Professor Hsing Kenneth Cheng, University of Florida

Brief introduction of the reporter:

Professor Hsing Kenneth Cheng is the John B. Higdon Distinguished Scholar at the University of Florida and Chair of the Department of Information Systems and Operations Management at the Warrington School of Business. He received his PhD in Computer and Information Systems from the University of Rochester in 1992. Professor Zheng's main research interests are analysis of the impact of Internet technology on software development and marketing, information systems policy issues (especially the national debate on net neutrality). Based on papers published in the top three information systems journals, Prof. Zheng is ranked 20th (2009-2011) and 16th (2010-2012) among the Global Information Systems 100 Researchers. Professor Zheng is currently an associate editor of Decision Sciences and a senior editor of the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Information Systems and electronic Management. He was an associate editor at Information Systems Research from 2011-2014, served on the program committees of many information systems conferences and seminars, and co-chaired the Workshop on E-Business (2003, 2012) and Taiwan Summer Workshop on Information Management programs.

Introduction to the report:

The rapid advancement and adoption of blockchain technology has heralded an explosive growth of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) as a new and popular fundraising approach for blockchain start-ups. To advertise their project before the ICO and to motivate blockchain individuals to invest in the subsequent ICO, a growing number of blockchain-based project founders employ an airdrop campaign through which they distribute a specific amount of free official tokens or promotion tokens to potential investors on blockchain with or without their permissions. Of paramount concerns to the blockchain companies contemplating whether to launch an airdrop campaign are whether the airdrop campaign has a positive effect on the potential investors’ investment behaviors in their ICOs, and how the efficacy of the airdrop may vary with their individual characteristics. To address these critical questions, we implement a regression discontinuity design by leveraging the quasi-randomization of a blockchain project’s promotional airdrop campaign on the Ethereum platform. We find that the promotional airdrop leads to a 2.3 times increase of the potential investors’ ICO investment probability. We further find that the airdrop is more effective in increasing the investment probability for individuals whose personality traits are dissimilar to the block-chain project than those similar to the project. Our study contributes to the literature of ICOs, personality similarity, and direct-to-consumer marketing, and provides important and useful managerial implications to blockchain companies on whether and how to launch an airdrop campaign.

(Organizer: Department of Management Engineering, Research and Academic Exchange Center)