KEVIN SO

Expertise

Hospitality and tourism marketing and service management with an emphasis on branding, customer engagement, social media marketing, electronic word of mouth, and the sharing economy.

Biography

Dr. Kevin Kam Fung So is William S. Spears Chair in Business, Full Professor, and Ph.D. Program Coordinator with the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University. He previously served as Associate Professor (tenured) in the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management and as a Research Associate in the SmartState Center of Economic Excellence in Tourism and Economic Development at the University of South Carolina. An award-winning scholar in his field, Dr. So's research expertise lies at the intersection of hospitality and tourism marketing and service management with emphases on branding, customer engagement, social media marketing, electronic word of mouth, and the rise of the sharing economy. He is also highly interested in advanced quantitative methods and analytical techniques. To date, Dr. So has published more than 70 peer-reviewed articles, 53 of which have appeared in the Spears School of Business A-level journals (39 in Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business Elite Journals). His work has appeared in many top-tier tourism and hospitality management journals including Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Travel Research, Tourism Management, Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, International Journal of Hospitality Management, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, and Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, as well as Journal of Business Research. At present, his scholarly work has been cited over 8,000 times (over 1,200 times in 2020, 1,400 times in 2021, and 1,700 times in 2022) according to Google Scholar. He is one of few researchers in his discipline to have been named on the 2021 and 2022 list of Highly Cited Researchers from Clarivate(tm). He has also been listed by Stanford University as among The World's Top 2% of scientists in the broader field of "Sport, Leisure & Tourism" every year (2022, 2021, 2020) since Stanford University established the database in 2020. Many of his publications have been ranked among the most highly cited and most frequently downloaded articles in leading hospitality and tourism journals. Dr. So is also a Coordinating Editor of International Journal of Hospitality Management and served as a Guest Editor of Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research (special issue on "Customer Engagement in Tourism and Hospitality Services"), Cornell Hospitality Quarterly (special issue on "Service Innovation and Emerging Technologies in Tourism and Hospitality"), and International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management(special issue on "The Sharing Economy in a Post-pandemic World"). He sits on the editorial board of 12 international journals in his field, including Journal of Travel Research, Tourism Management, Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, and International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. Additionally, he serves as a reviewer for 13 academic journals such as Journal of Business Research, European Journal of Marketing, and Industrial Marketing Management. He has chaired or served on the dissertation committees of more than 20 Ph.D. students.

Dr. So has received many prestigious awards, including the Emerald Literati Network Award for Excellence: Highly Commended Paper Award from International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management in 2011 and 2018; the Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing Martin Oppermann Best Article of the Year Award in 2014; and the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research Article of the Year Award in 2015. His doctoral dissertation won the internationally prestigious Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Award in the Hospitality Management category in 2014. He was also the recipient of the 2018 William Bradford Wiley Memorial Best Research Paper of the Year Award in the field of hospitality and tourism management. He was the recipient of the 2018 Patricia G. Moody Researcher of the Year Award in College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management in recognition of his consistent and outstanding scholarly achievements. In 2018, his article "The role of customer engagement in building consumer loyalty to tourism brands," published in Journal of Travel Research (HTM A+ journal), was ranked the no. 1 most downloaded article and no. 2 most cited article published in the journal. In 2022, his article "Customer engagement with tourism brands: Scale development and validation," published in Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research (HTM A+ journal), was named the no. 1 most highly cited article published in this outlet within the past 10 years (2011-2021). In 2019, Dr. So was named a Breakthrough Star of the University of South Carolina, a university-wide research award that "recognizes faculty members who exceed expectations in their fields, demonstrate exceptional potential, and have made outstanding contributions to research and scholarship during a short time at the university." His outstanding research performance earned him The Richard W. Poole Research Excellence Award in 2022 and 2023, a college-level research award from the Spears School of Business.

Dr. So has attracted a total of over US$900,000 in external research funding. Many of these projects were funded by prestigious state and federal government agencies such as the following: the United States Department of Commerce; the American Hotel and Lodging Association; the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism; the City of Columbia, South Carolina; and peer institutions in the United States, Australia, and Hong Kong.

Dr. So earned his Ph.D. in Business Administration with a concentration in Hospitality and Tourism Management from the Griffith Business School (AACSB accredited), Griffith University, Australia, where he also obtained a Bachelor of Business in Hotel Management with First Class Honors. Dr. So pursued graduate studies in mathematical sciences, majoring in statistics and statistical modeling at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Before entering academia, he gained extensive industry experience in hotel operations-including banquets, fine dining, room service, concierge, and housekeeping-at Australia's Sheraton Mirage Resort and Spa Gold Coast, Sheraton Perth Hotel, Perth Ambassador Hotel, and Perth Comfort Inn Wentworth Plaza Hotel. Outside of work, he is a photography enthusiast and a passionate runner.