IT researcher honored with ‘early career’ award

For her research in the area of IT management, University of Notre Dame business professor Hong Guo received an “early career” award from the leading international association for professionals in operations research and analytics.

Guo, the Robert and Sara Lumpkins Associate Professor in Business Analytics, was awarded the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Sandy Slaughter Early Career Award in recognition of the honor of being “an early career individual on a path towards making outstanding intellectual contributions to the Information Systems Discipline.”

Guo, who joined Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business in 2009, studies emerging phenomena in IT by characterizing key design features of systems such as mobile platforms, digital games and product review systems, and examining firms’ corresponding strategies. She also studies the economic analysis of IT policy issues, including net neutrality and public safety networks.

In a recent study, “Selling Virtual Currency in Digital Games: Implications on Gameplay and Social Welfare,” forthcoming in Information Systems Research, Guo and her co-authors find that selling virtual currency reduces the playing times for some heavy players, which helps to alleviate the risk of excessive gaming. Selling virtual currency also leads to a larger player base and more people enjoying the many benefits from playing digital games.

Her research has been published in top business journals such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management and Production and Operations Management. Guo teaches analytics courses for Mendoza’s Department of IT, Analytics, and Operations. She won the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C. Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2017 and the James Dincolo Outstanding Teaching Award for Undergraduate Teaching in 2013.

She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Florida.