A Personal Perspective on Doing Good Research Seminar Series – Prof Leng Mingming: Cooperative Game Theory has a practical application in our daily lives

The fourth session of the A Personal Perspective on Doing Good Research Seminar Series for the 2025/26 academic year, organised by the School of Graduate Studies of Lingnan University, was held on 22 January 2026 at the Leung Fong Oi Wan Art Gallery. The seminar featured a thought-provoking talk titled “Multi-Player Allocations in the Presence of Diminishing Marginal Contributions: Cooperative Game Analysis and Applications in Management Science”, given by Prof Leng Mingming, Dean of the Faculty of Business and Chair Professor of Operations and Risk Management. The seminar was attended by about 70 faculty members and students from various disciplines, and sparked great interest and discussion.

A leading scholar in operations management and cooperative game theory, Prof Leng holds a PhD in Management Science/System from the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University, Canada. His research brings together rigorous theoretical foundations with practical applications, and focuses on cooperative game theory, supply chain operations, and allocation problems in complex multi-player environments. Prof Leng has published extensively in top international journals, such as Management Science, Operations Research, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, IISE Transactions, and Naval Research Logistics. As well as his academic achievements, he brings valuable real-world insights from his five years of industry experience.

Prof Leng introduced the concept of almost diminishing marginal contributions (ADMC), and described how this can be applied to model and analyse multi-player allocation problems. He explained how cooperative game analysis can address fairness and efficiency in management science, bridging theory and practice with illustrative applications such as a code-sharing game, a group-buying game, and a scheduling profit game, which demonstrate how abstract game-theoretic insights can inform decision-making in management science and operations contexts, reinforcing the seminar series’ emphasis on research that is both methodologically robust and practically useful.

When asked during the Q&A session about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on his research, Prof Leng said that “AI is becoming increasingly integrated into management science, and reshapes business and education. We can use this technology to predict value and create a scheme. Research is the hallmark of business scholars, so we are exploring how to use AI in our theory to achieve better results.” He added that using data science will improve research outcomes in business studies.

Isaac Oware, a student in the Master of Social Sciences in Comparative Social Policy (International) programme, said the seminar was highly informative. Prof Leng’s discussion on cooperative game theory gave him new ideas as a fund manager for a group of teachers in Ghana for fair profit distribution. “This theory gave me insights into how profits can be shared to ensure nobody is disadvantaged,” he said.

The A Personal Perspective on Doing Good Research Seminar Series invites senior university management and leading scholars to talk about their research and perspectives, and initiates in-depth discussions among doctoral students, early-career researchers, and academics on how to conduct the best research.

The next seminar will be held on 4 February 2026, when Prof Richard M. Walker, Lee Shau Kee Foundation Chair Professor of Public Administration in the School of Graduate Studies and the Department of Government and International Affairs at Lingnan University, will give a talk titled My Research Journey: The Importance of Networks and Contexts, in which he will discuss how spending two-thirds of his academic career in Hong Kong has influenced his research focus, particularly on replication. He will also explain his methodological evolution from qualitative to quantitative methods and experimental techniques. Prof Walker is also the Head of the Department of Government and International Affairs, and Director of the Lingnan University Institute for Advanced Study, the Institute of Policy Studies, and the Governance and Bureaucracy Lab.