Prof. ZHENG Xu (鄭煦教授)

Xu Vivian Zheng is an Associate Professor in Department of Marketing, College Business of City University of Hong Kong. Dr. Zheng's primary research interest lies in understanding how firms may employ various relationship governance mechanisms (e.g., contracts, socialization) to govern interorganizational (e.g., franchise) relationships properly, so as to reduce conflicts and to enhance cooperation. In addition, her research studies how GIS-informed location choices impact firms’ financial performance and survival. Vivian has published in leading marketing and business journals such as Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and Journal of Retailing, etc. Her industry focus is business format franchising.

Dr. Zheng teaches Global Marketing and Principles of Marketing across undergraduate, taught master, and MBA programs. She has received Student Learning and Development Excellence Award. She received her Ph.D. in Marketing from University of Wisconsin-Madison before joining the Marketing Department at CityU.

Awards

Research Grant

• PI: "Contagion of Failure: Paths and Curbing Mechanisms of Successive Store Failure Within Franchise Networks", Strategic Research Grant - City University of Hong Kong , Amount: 100,000 (2024-2026) , with Yajing Fan
• PI: "The Role of Franchise Contracts in Optimizing Franchise Relationships Outcomes: A Data Science Approach", Strategic Interdisciplinary Research Grant - City University of Hong Kong , Amount: 300,000 (2022-2024) , with Li, Lishuai, Wang, Shucheng, and Huang, Jianxiang
• PI: "When Mutli-Unit Franchising Backfires: The Contingent Effects of Subgroup Configurations", General Research Grant - Research Grants Council, Hong Kong , Amount: 240,993 (2022-2023) , Zheng, Xu (Vivian), Li, Ji Jenny
• PI: "Beyong Locations: The Contingent Effects of Governance Mechanisms in Clustering of Franchised Outlets", General Research Grant - Research Grant Council, Hong Kong , Amount: 486,176 (2021-2023) , Zheng, Xu (Vivian) and Yajing Fan
• PI: "When It Is Good to Be Vague: The Strategic Use of Contract Ambiguity in Franchise Relationship Management", Strategic Research Grant - City University of Hong Kong , Amount: 100,000 (2018-2020) , Zheng, Xu (Vivian)
• PI: "Unnatural Relationship Dissolution in Franchising: A Dual-Agency Perspective", General Research Grant - Research Grants Council, Hong Kong , Amount: HKD 501,250 (2015-2017) , Xu Zheng, Jeff Jianfeng Wang, Marko Grunhagen
• PI: "Marketing Assets, Marketing Actions, and Firms' Response Strategies to Exogenous Shocks", Early Career Scheme - Research Grants Council , Amount: HKD321,696 (2013-2015) , Zheng, Xu

Administrative Assignments

Selected Publications