Zirou Chen

Hi, I am Zirou (pronounced as "ZiERO", 🔊 ) Chen.

I received my Ph.D. from the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, where I was fortunate to be advised by Prof. Nitin Mehta. My research primarily focuses on consumer behavior and strategy in the age of digital technologies and AI. The first stream studies how gamification tools shape consumer behavior on social media platforms. The second stream studies how AI-powered personalized recommendations influence consumer search behavior.

I will be joining the Hong Kong Baptist University as an Assistant Professor of Marketing in Summer 2026!

Curriculum Vitae | Google Scholar | Zirou.Chen@Rotman.UToronto.Ca

Working Papers

Predictive Accuracy, Consumer Search, and Personalized Recommendation, with Mengze Shi and Zachary Zhong

Competitive Gamification in Digital Consumption: Evidence from TikTok, with Matthew Osborne and Nitin Mehta

Preference for Diversity, with Ying Zeng, Jiajia Liu, and Jingyi Lu

Product Relevance, Consumer Search, and Competition, with Bing Jing and Mengze Shi

Publications

Comparing Human-Only, AI-Assisted, and AI-Led Teams on Assessing Research Reproducibility in Quantitative Social Science, social science crowd analysis. Forthcoming, PNAS