The continual transformation of Hong Kong into a knowledge-based economy has created a demand for highly trained executives and entrepreneurs whose abilities reach beyond the confines of traditional business and economics education. To meet this growing demand, the Faculty of Business and Economics of The University of Hong Kong established the Information Systems programme at the start of the millennium.

Professor Patrick Chau, who became Director of the School of Business in July 2013, was instrumental in creating and then launching the programme in 2000-2001. This Information Systems programme is a double-degree course jointly offered with the Department of Computer Science of the Faculty of Engineering. It blends two strategic disciplines of business and computer science into a single course and is the first one of its kind in Hong Kong. Students in the course receive a broad education but with special focus on the synergy between business studies and information systems.

Professor Chau conducts research on how information and information technologies can be used by companies to help improve their business operations, at both operational and strategic levels. In particular he is looking at how a user can use information or information system (IS) effectively and efficiently. Research areas include management of information systems, e-commerce, knowledge management and IT outsourcing. He has published extensively in these areas and was ranked number eight worldwide in terms of research publication productivity in major IS/IT journals, announced in the Communications of the Association for Information Systems in April 2005. His publications have close to 8,000 citation counts with the top article with more than 1,000 citations on Google Scholar. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Information and Management and was the Co-Editor of Electronic Commerce Research & Applications and Database in 2007-2011.

Professor Chau obtained his PhD in business administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. He returned to Hong Kong in 1992 and joined the School of Business at HKU in May 1999. From July 2001 to June 2005, and from September 2010 to July 2013, Professor Chau was Associate Dean in the Faculty of Business and Economics overseeing the Faculty’s undergraduate programmes and teaching & learning respectively. He is currently a professor in the area of Information Systems and teaches courses in strategic management of IT, IT entrepreneurship and research methodologies.

Professor Chau has been active in both the IS academic community and the IT professional community. He was Vice-President of the Association for Information Systems (2006-2008), President of the Chinese Association for Information Systems (2005-2007), Founding President of the Hong Kong Association for Information Systems (2006), and was recently elected as President of the Information Systems Academic Heads International (2014-2015). In the IT professional community, he was Chairperson of the e-Business Specialist Group of the Hong Kong Computer Society (2001-2003), Vice-President (Professional Development) of the Society (2008-2011) and is currently the Chairman of the Certification Board of the Hong Kong Institute for IT Professional Certification.

Professor Chau was appointed in March 2010 as Chang Jiang Scholar, jointly administered and awarded by the Chinese Ministry of Education and Li Ka Shing Foundation. In 2013, he received the AIS Fellow Award, which is established by the Association for Information Systems to recognise scholars who have made excellent research, teaching, and service contributions to the Information Systems discipline. Each year, the Association confers this Award to no more than six scholars globally.