LI Sihan: dedicating himself to the research on innovation and sustainability

[Editor’s Note: LI Sihan, recipient of the 12th “Top Ten Students” as well as the Chu Kochen Scholarship 2020-2021 of Zhejiang University, is working on his doctoral dissertation about innovative management in his final year at the School of Management. Looking back through these four years till the September when he called himself a ZJUer for the first time, Sihan summarized, “I revealed my true self in one and another identity.”]

From engineering to management 

Sihan became a freshman in university in 2014, the year that marked China’s Premier LI Keqiang’s promise, on the Eighth World Economic Forum, to promote business startups and innovation. Inspired by the initiative of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation,” Sihan chose Financial Management as his minor besides the major of Engineering Management, and was delighted to set sail for the business world.

As a sophomore, he won a national college business competition, and was therefore sponsored by China Scholarship Council for an academic exchange at UC Berkeley. He has been keeping in mind that eye-opening summer in San Francisco Bay Area. “Apart from attending the courses at school, I also visited the globally renowned Silicon Valley, and was impressed by the entrepreneurial enthusiasm there. They start business out of pure love and true devotion to their big dreams!”

It was there with those passionate young entrepreneurs that Sihan implanted deep at heart the dream to initiate a startup of his own. Carrying this dream forward, he came to Hangzhou, hailed as an entrepreneurial city in China, and applied for the PhD program in Innovative Management at Zhejiang University. “For this a highly inclusive university with the most entrepreneur-friendly environment in China,” he never regretted this choice.

From business to academia

At Zhejiang University, Sihan had wished to continue his entrepreneurial career by participating in business competitions, making likeminded friends, and looking for potential partners. But things proved more marvelous than it should have been. “I had always intended to be a businessman, until I met my mentor and this discipline, Innovative Management, which pertains to exploring the approaches, patterns, and regularities of industrial innovation in China.”

Supervised by Prof. WU Xiaobo, a reputed Chang Jiang Scholar, Sihan, apart from being a prepared entrepreneur, got another identity: a business researcher. Since his first year with Prof. WU’s team, Sihan had joined a research project about the innovative practices of Geely, trying to decipher how, in less than 40 years, this private local startup has grown into a world-class auto-enterprise. “In two months, I finished a manual transcription of tens of thousands of words in Geely’s archive. And I interviewed many people: the CEO, directors of several branches, and some employees at the production line.”

His work was tiring but fruitful, and it finally paid off by transforming into the monograph Non-linear Growth, which is awaiting the global publication in English. As one of its co-authors, Sihan got a clearer view about business and its dependence on innovation. “Innovation is from my perspective a recombination of all factors of production. It guarantees sustainable development in any company, any country, and even the whole world,” he explained. “I am thus more and more determined to be a scholar, and to dedicate myself to the research on innovation and sustainability.”

The career change allowed him to understand more about the world and himself. However, he never meant to give up his goal. “Before finally growing into an entrepreneur, I may need more accumulation in my life experience, as well as in my material and social resources. And I may still need to learn more about the business world to find my real interest, or technically, a window of opportunity for entrepreneurship.”

From China to the World

Considering how to find the window of opportunity, Sihan attached importance to transdisciplinary communication. “I benefited a lot from a trip to Harvard University where ZJU alumni gathered to share various opinions on subjects like architecture, medicine, cerebral science, and, of course, business and management. That was really a thinktank for potential entrepreneurs.”

During his graduate years, Sihan has been enjoying the opportunities of international exchange offered by Zhejiang University. Despite current frustrations caused by the pandemic, it remains his conviction that globalization is a process irreversible. “It is far from enough to do research locally. Scholars should go global instead,” he thought. “And thanks to the University, I have been able to communicate with those top scholars in the world.” By the end of this year, Sihan is going to Cambridge University as a joint PhD student. After that, he plans for another academic exchange at National University of Singapore. 

As for his ambition after earning the doctorate, Sihan wished to continue his studies on the C Theories that centers on innovative practices in Chinese enterprises, and share them with the rest of the world. “My doctoral dissertation focuses on the dynamic process in which Chinese enterprises start with ‘catching up’ and finally get ‘beyond catching up’ in terms of innovation. Hopefully, in the end, these studies would contribute to the innovative and sustainable development for the humanity.”

Writer: CAI Zhengwu

Editor: TIAM Minjie

Photo: The interviewee