Tianshu Sun (孙天澍) is Dean's Distinguished Chair Professor of Information Systems at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB website). He is also the Founding Director of Center for Digital Transformation at CKGSB and Academic Director of CKGSB DBA Program. Tianshu was a tenured professor at University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business (in Data Sciences and Operations), with a joint appointment at USC Viterbi School of Engineering (in Computer Science). He has been recognized by Robert R. Dockson Named Professorship and Dean's Award of Research Excellence at USC  (USC Website). 

 

Statement: All my articles, media press, opinion pieces and interviews are listed on this personal website (see below) and on the websites of CKGSB. 我全部撰写的学术文章和媒体观点都在下面列表中, 并且会实时更新在我长江商学院的官方网站上. 我从来没有撰写过下面列表之外其他文章, 也没有接受过任何列表之外的媒体采访. 


Research Interests:  Digital Transformation, LLM/GPT/AI & Human-AI Co-creation, Business Value of AI, Cloud Computing and IoT, Personal Data & Data Regulation, Digital Experimentation, Digital Plat

form Ecosystem, Digital Economy 

Design Al-enabled and data-driven interventions and strategies for businesses

Design Large-scale digital experiments and algorithms with Digital Platforms to understand


Research Expertise: Field Experiment, Causal Inference,  Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Structural Econometric Model, Lab Experiment, Social Network Analysis, Bayesian Statistics

Invited Talks: Harvard, MIT, Wharton, CMU, NYU, U Chicago, UCLA, UCSD, UMD, UMN, UT Austin, Rochester, HKU, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Alibaba, Ant Financial, Uber, and 80+ across top Universities and Tech Companies.

Editorial & Review:  Associate Editor at Information Systems Research (ISR),  

Associate Editor at Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (MSOM), 

Guest Associate Editor at Management Science (MS) and MIS Quarterly (MISQ), AE for Special Issue at MISQ (Digital Resilience), AE for Special Issue at ISR (AI), Invited Reviewer for NSF Career Award, Submit 140+ Reviews across Management Science, ISR, MISQ, M&SOM, Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research

Industry Collaborations: Facebook, Alibaba, Adobe, LivingSocial (Groupon), NetEase, Cainiao, Collage.com, Zhima, Shanbay, Practo.com, and a variety of firms in US and Asia.  

Industry Grants: Facebook (2020), Adobe (2017, 2020), ICCI (2017-2018), INET, MSI, Net Institute

Best Paper Awards: CIST (2023, 2015),  Dick Wittink Prize 2021 (QME), ICIS , WISE, WITS, M&SOM, ECML-PKDD, INFORMS, POMS, CSWIM, CSAMSE, etc.

Teaching (USC Golden Apple Award): Big Data (AI/ML & Analytics & Infrastructure), Platform Strategy, Data-driven Organization, Digital Experimentation, Digital Transformation


Publications in Information Systems, Operations, Marketing, Economics and Computer Science:

See CV for a full list of Publications, Working Papers and Work-in-Progress

See Research by Topics on Data, AI and Privacy,  Omnichannel Retail, Social Interactions, and Field Experiments

26.     Wen Wang, Siqi Pei, and Tianshu Sun (2025) "Unraveling Generative AI from A Human Intelligence Perspective: A Battery of Experiments",  Forthcoming, Information Systems Research

25.     Zhe Yuan, Tianshu Sun, Yitong Wang, and Huilan Xu (2025), "Democratizing Data Analytics Product to Drive SME Growth: A Natural Experiment",    Forthcoming, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management

24.     Aishwarya Deep Shukla, Guodong (Gordon) Gao, Ritu Agarwal and Tianshu Sun (2025) “Effects of Nudging and Privacy Control on Online Physician Reviews: Evidence from a Field Experiment”, Forthcoming, Journal of Management Information Systems

23.     Tianshu Sun, Zhe Yuan, Chunxiao Li, Kaifu Zhang, Jun Xu (2024) The Value of Personal Data in Internet Commerce: A High-Stake Field Experiment on Data Regulation Policy, 70(4):2645-2660, Management Science

(See a review paper with Leading Economists on Data Value, Data Privacy, and Data Regulation which covers some of the experiment findings. 

Presented/Scheduled at Harvard, MIT,  U Chicago, CMU, NYU, UCLA, USC, BU, UT Austin, UMN, UBC, Purdue, Tsinghua, etc.

22.     Zhe Yuan, AJ Chen, Yitong Wang, and Tianshu Sun (2024) "How Recommendation Affects Customer Search: A Field Experiment", Forthcoming, Information Systems Research

21.     JaeHwuen Jung,  Tianshu Sun, Ravi Bapna, and Joseph Golden (2024) “Social Learning in Prosumption: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment”,  Forthcoming, Management Science

20.     Andrew Heeseung Lee, Angela Choi, Tianshu Sun, Wonseok Oh, "To Split or to Merge?: How Partitioning Affects Consumption and Engagement with Digital Content", Forthcoming, Information Systems Research

19.     Brian Rongqing Han, Tianshu Sun, Leon Yang Chu, Lixia Wu (2024) “Connecting Customers and Merchants Offline: Experimental Evidence from The Commercialization of Last-Mile Pickup Stations at Alibaba” (CODE 2018, WISE 2018, ICIS 2019, SCECR 2019), MIS Quarterly, 48(3): 1157-1192

18.      Tianshu Sun, Max Wei and Joe Golden (2025), Geographical Pattern of Online Word-of-Mouth: How Offline Environment Influences Online Sharing, Forthcoming, Information Systems Research

17.      Brian Rongqing Han, Leon Yang Chu, Tianshu Sun, Lixia Wu (2024)  “Commercializing the Package Flow: Cross-sampling Physical Products Through E-commerce Warehouses”, (WISE 2019 Best Student Paper), Forthcoming, Management Science

16.      Ruomeng Cui, Zhikun Lu, Tianshu Sun, Joseph Golden (2024) "Sooner or Later? Promising Delivery Speed in Online Retail", (ICIS 2021 Best Paper in "Digital and Mobile Commerce"), Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 26(1):233-251.

15.    Yicheng Song and Tianshu Sun (2024) “Ensemble Experiments to Optimize Interventions along the Customer Journey: A Reinforcement Learning Approach” , Management Science, 70(8):5115-5130. 

--Adobe Faculty Research Award 2020, Marketing Science Institute (MSI) Research Grant 2021

14. Wilson Lin, Susan Feng Lu, Tianshu Sun (2023) "Worker Experience and Donor Heterogeneity: The Impact of Charitable Workers on Donors’ Blood Donation Decisions", Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 25(3):939-957.

13.      Brian Han, Tianshu Sun, Leon Chu and Lixia Wu (2022) “COVID-19 and E-commerce Operations: Evidence from Alibaba”, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 24(3):1388-1405

12.      Tianshu Sun, Siva Viswanathan and Elena Zheleva (2021) “Creating Social Contagion through Firm Mediated Message Design: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment”, Management Science, 67(2), 808-827.

-- Best Dissertation Proposal (Runner-up), WITS 2015; Best Paper (Finalist), CSWIM 2015; Best Student Paper (3rd Place), INFORMS Service Science Society 2014; Winner, Marketing Science Institute (MSI) Research Competition 2014

11.      Tianshu Sun and Sean Taylor (2020) “Displaying Things in Common to Encourage Friendship Formation: A Large Randomized Field Experiment”, Quantitative Marketing and Economics, 18, 237-271.

-- Winner of Dick Wittink Prize (Best Published Paper in QME 2020),  Included in the Proceedings of ACM EC 2019, Talks at Facebook, LinkedIn, Snap, CODE/MIT, Wharton, CMU, BU, ASU, CUHK, KAIST, PKU, Tsinghua, Jiaotong

10.      Heeseung Andrew Lee, Angela Aerry Choi, Tianshu Sun, Wonseok Oh (2021) “Reviewing Before Reading? An Empirical Investigation of Book Consumption Patterns and Their Effects on Reviews and Sales”, Information Systems Research, 32(4), 1368-1389.

9.      Tianshu Sun, Siva Viswanathan, Ni Huang and Elena Zheleva (2020) “Designing Promotional Incentive to Embrace Social Sharing: Evidence from Field and Online Experiments”, MIS Quarterly, 45(2), 789-820

8.     Edward McFowland III, Sandeep Gangarapu, Ravi Bapna and Tianshu Sun (2021) “A Prescriptive Analytics Framework for Optimal Policy Deployment using Heterogeneous Treatment Effects”, MIS Quarterly, 45(4), 1807-1832 

7.   Ni Huang, Probal Mojumder, Tianshu Sun, Jinchi Lv, Joseph Golden “Not Registered? Please Sign-up First: A Randomized Field Experiment on the Ex-ante Registration Request”, Information Systems Research, 32(3), 914-931  (Equal Contribution)

6.      Mingxuan Yue, Tianshu Sun, Fan Wu, Lixia Wu, Yinghui Xu and Cyrus Shahabi (2020) “Learning Contextual and Topological Representations of Areas-of-Interest for On-Demand Delivery Application”, Proceedings of the 2020 European Conference on Machine Learning 

-- ECML-PKDD 2020 Best Applied Data Science Award, Runner-up

5.      JaeHwuen Jung, Ravi Bapna, Joseph Golden and Tianshu Sun (2020) (All contribute equally) “Words Matter! Towards Pro-social Call-to-Action for Online Referral: Evidence from Two Field Experiments”, Information Systems Research, 31(1), 16-36.

-- Knowledge@Wharton; Best Paper Finalist & Best Paper in E-Business, ICIS 2016

4.      Tianshu Sun, Guodong (Gordon) Gao and Ginger Zhe Jin (2019), “Mobile Messaging for Offline Group Formation in Prosocial Activities: A Large Field Experiment”, Management Science, 65(6), 2445-2945.

-- Best Paper, CIST 2015; Best Paper (Honorable Mentions), INFORMS Doing Good with Good OR 2015; Best Student Paper (Finalist), WHITE 2015

3.      Tianshu Sun, Lanfei Shi, Siva Viswanathan and Elena Zheleva (2019) “Motivating Effective Mobile App Adoption: Evidence from a Large-Scale Randomized Field Experiment”, Information Systems Research, 30(2), 523-539.

-- CIST 2016, SCECR 2016, Marketing Science 2017, Temple University 2017

2.      Ni Huang, Tianshu Sun, Pei-yu Chen and Joseph Golden (2019) “Word-of-Mouth System Implementation and Customer Conversion: A Randomized Field Experiment”, Information Systems Research, 30(3), 805-818.

-- Best Paper (Finalist), ICIS 2017; Best Paper, ICIS E-Business Track 2017, CIST 2017

1.      Tianshu Sun, Susan Feng Lu and Ginger Zhe Jin (2016), “Solving Shortage in a Priceless Market: Evidence from Blood Donation”, Journal of Health Economics, 48(2016):149-165. 

-- Featured on Nobel Prize Laureate Al Roth’s blog and in NBER News; Winning Proposal, Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) & Soros Foundation, 2013