P R E S S   R E L E A S E

        The Chinese University of Hong Kong has invited Professor Patrick T. Harker, Dean of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in USA to visit the University as Wei Lun Visiting Professor.  Apart from academic exchanges with the Faculties of Engineering and Business Administration, Professor Harker delivered a public lecture entitled “From Customer to Co-Producer: Lessons for Higher Education” today on CUHK campus.

        A dramatic transition of the customer's role in many service industries (e.g. on-line retailing, auction, banking, brokerage, auto shopping, and even education) is underway.  Instead of being a passive recipient of a service production and delivery process, the customer is playing a much more active and even leading role in the process.  Professor Harker explored in his lecture the concept of customer efficiency management, the ability of an organization to effectively manage a customer's efforts in co-producing a service.  He explained such concept along with preliminary empirical evidence from on-line retailing and addressed the concept in the higher education context.

        Professor Patrick T. Harker is the Dean of the Wharton School and the Reliance Professor of Management and Private Enterprise.  He currently serves as a Trustee of the Goldman Sachs Trust and the Goldman Sachs Variable Insurance Trust as well as serving as a member of the Advisory Board of Juniper Bank.

        Professor Harker received his B.S.E. and M.S.E. in Civil Engineering in 1981, and an M.A. in Economics and a Ph.D. in Transportation Planning and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1983.  The naming of Professor Harker as a Presidential Young Investigator by the National Science Foundation in 1986 affirmed his reputation as a leading scholar in the areas of service operations, technology management, and operations research.  In his career, he has published five books and over 80 professional articles.  In June 1991, President Bush named Professor Harker as a White House Fellow, one of sixteen chosen in the country.  Most recently, Professor Harker is engaged in the analysis of the operations and economics of the service sector.

        The Wei Lun Visiting Professorship / Fellowship Scheme of CUHK was established through a generous donation by the Wei Lun Foundation Limited with the aim to invite eminent scholars from around the world to visit and give lecture at CUHK.