Speaker：Weiling Ke, Professor, Southern University of Science and Technology
Date & Time：December 6, 2025, p.m.15:30
Venue：Room 105, Building No.12, Wushan Campus
Hosted by：School of Business Administration
Biography
Weiling Ke joined College of Business at Southern University of Science and Technology as a tenured professor in 2020. She is the founding head of the Department of Information Systems & Management Engineering. Her research has primarily focused on management of IT-enabled innovations. Professor Ke has published papers with many premier journals such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of Business Ethics and Personnel Psychology. She serves as a Senior Editor or Associate Editor of many international journals such as Decision Support Systems Information & Management and IT & People.
Abstract
Online peer-to-peer lending (i.e., P2P lending) has grown rapidly in recent years and is a new source of fixed income for investors. However, there is limited understanding of factors affecting individual lenders’ decision making in this context, which is characterized as highly risky. Drawing on construal level theory, we theorize how bidding amounts lenders submit are affected by interest rates and psychological distance caused by the borrower’s demographic attributes (i.e., geographic location, age, educational degree, and marital status) relative to those of the lender. Specifically, we study how psychological distance shapes the effects of the duality of interest rates (i.e., as rates of return and as signals of potential risk) and directly influences bidding amounts. Using a rich data set from a popular Chinese online P2P lending platform, we apply multiple identification strategies and estimation methods to conduct our analyses. We find that the effects of interest rates on bidding amounts are strengthened by the geographic and social distance between the lender and the borrower. In addition, geographic distance decreases the lenders’ bidding amounts (i.e., home bias effect), whereas social distance increases the bidding amounts (i.e., social distance effect). Additionally, four controlled experiments are conducted to investigate the causality and mechanisms behind these relationships. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.
