January 7, 2026, CUFE Business School successfully held the 2nd session of 2026 Excellent Academic Forum in Conference Room 615 of the Main Teaching Building at the Xueyuan South Road Campus. Professor Lin Haifen from Dalian University of Technology was invited as the keynote speaker for this forum. Faculty members, doctoral students, master’s students from CUFE Business School, as well as scholars from other universities attended the event.
The lecture was chaired by Professor Liu Xiaoyuan, Deputy Director of the MBA Education Center and Associate Dean of CUFE Business School. At the beginning of the event, Professor Liu provided a detailed introduction to Professor Lin Haifen’s academic background. Professor Lin Haifen is a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Economics and Management, Dalian University of Technology. She is a recipient of the Young Changjiang Scholar Award of the Ministry of Education, a Young Leading Talent of the “Xingliao Talent Program” of Liaoning Province, and Chief Expert of the Major Project of the National Social Science Fund of China. She also serves as Associate Editor of Management Case Study and Review. Her main research areas include organizational routines, organizational paradoxes, and strategic transformation toward high-end development. She has led five research projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Social Science Fund of China, including one major project and one key project of the National Social Science Fund. Professor Lin has published more than 80 papers in leading management journals such as Management World, Journal of Management Sciences in China, and Journal of Business Research. She has authored six academic monographs, including Adoptive Management Innovation. Her academic honors include the Youth Award of the Outstanding Scientific Research Achievement Award (Humanities and Social Sciences) of Institutions of Higher Education under the Ministry of Education, the Second and Third Prizes of the Liaoning Provincial Philosophy and Social Sciences Achievement Award, the Best Paper Award at the 16th and 17th China Forum on Management Case and Qualitative Research, the Excellent Paper Award at the 4th Li Zhanxiang Management Philosophy Award, and the Best Coach Award of the National Case Elite Competition, among more than twenty awards. Professor Lin has also led National Top 100 Key Case Projects and Thematic Case Projects of the Ministry of Education, authored over 60 management cases, won 10 awards in the National Top 100 Excellent Management Cases, and had 19 cases included in the Harvard Business School Publishing and Ivey Publishing case libraries.
The theme of Professor Lin’s lecture was “High-End Transformation: Breaking Through the Development Bottlenecks of Chinese Enterprises.” Under the new context of high-quality development, leading enterprises are increasingly eager to achieve breakthroughs through strategic transformation toward high-end development. This transformation involves comprehensive restructuring across multiple aspects of the firm, including product positioning, research and development, brand strategy, resource allocation, and business domain redefinition, in response to the demands of high-end markets. Such transformation aims to fundamentally change the long-standing situation in which many domestic enterprises remain concentrated in the mid- to low-end market segments. Therefore, high-end strategic transformation has become a fundamental pathway for outstanding Chinese enterprises to achieve breakthroughs and sustainable development while aligning with the national strategy of high-quality development. It also represents a critical strategic issue reflecting the unique stage and context of Chinese enterprise development. From multiple perspectives—including the starting points and directions of strategic transformation, explicit transformation actions, implicit cognitive mechanisms, and leverage effects on industry development—Professor Lin and her research team have conducted systematic studies to develop a theoretical framework of enterprise high-end transformation in the Chinese context.
Following the lecture, participating faculty members and students engaged in lively discussions on topics such as research design and theoretical mechanisms, further promoting academic exchange and intellectual interaction.
As an important platform for CUFE Business School to fulfill its mission of “contributing new management knowledge”, the “Excellent Academic Forum” is committed to focusing on cutting-edge issues in the field of business administration and Chinese enterprise management practice. It gathers global wisdom and innovative perspectives to provide theoretical support and practical paths for promoting the sustainable development of Chinese society and economy.
