U-Corp is the abbreviation of the Duke Kunshan University-Corporation Innovation Lab, a co-innovation platform that connects innovative organizations/companies with the vibrant DKU research and entrepreneurial community. The goal is to provide DKU students with the opportunity to master industry-proven innovation research methodologies through productive practice and co-creation projects with companies. Meanwhile, the projects also offer cooperative enterprises with forward-looking insights and innovative solutions.
Among the seven projects of 2022 Fall U-Corp, the U-Corp @ 我的打工网 project is somewhat unique: it is a local project rooted in Kunshan, and the students have to complete two field studies to visit worker communities in various parts of Kunshan and investigate the huge group of blue-collar workers in this city. From observation and questionnaires, the group got a glimpse of their living habits so that they were able to summarize and analyze the consumption behavior of the worker community. This project requires participants to have strong interpersonal communication and quick adaptability to ensure that they can integrate into a community in just a few days that they have never visited before, collect relevant data on consumers’ behavior through interviews and questionnaires, and analyze the collected data in later stages. Every step seems to be a challenge that is full of uncertainties.
The project’s complexity was the key reason why the students chose to participate in this project. Yifei Luo, a student from the class of 2025, hopes to choose behavioral science as her future major and study consumer behavior, mainly focusing on the huge group of blue-collar workers. She reckons this is an excellent opportunity to start the behavioral science research process. Jiaying Li, a student about to graduate in behavioral science (psychology track), hopes this project will benefit her ongoing Signature Work and future career development. As for Ziqi Li, she thinks field trips allow people to develop their research skills and explore possible career interests.
Yifei Luo is interviewing job seekers
After the applications were approved and the group was formed, the three students began to work together to design questions and think about how to obtain the required information more effectively. The project did not point out the specific research direction, and the topic of “studying the consumption habits of blue-collar workers” is also vague. While this gave the three students maximum autonomy in developing their research and finalizing the results, it also made field studies and the distribution of questionnaires crucial. How can they design questions, and how can they obtain the most useful information with a relatively small number of questions in a short period of time? Before setting off, they had a discussion with U-Corp & 我的打工网 mentors to refine the questions and observation points repeatedly.
The field trip experience was impressive. Kunshan is known for its huge industrial clusters and groups of migrant workers. Kunshan’s non-permanent resident population accounts for nearly 60% of the total population, and more than 80% of them come from areas outside Jiangsu Province. The massive demand for workers naturally developed a considerable number of living communities for blue-collar workers, along with basic facilities and commercial areas. What are the prices and supplies of necessities? What are the prices of recreational services? How about the community and store’s environment, and will it affect the prices of the products sold? Conducting observations and surveys allow them to gain a deeper understanding of the situation from the supply side, but the situation on the demand side needs to be learned from interviews and questionnaires. They then went to the skills training center and the Boyue Center of 我的打工网. Through interviews with staff and job hunters, they gained a basic understanding of the consumption habits of blue-collar workers.
Indeed, the process has not been easy. Since consumption habits are very personal information, the interviewees might be resistant to answering questions regarding their privacy. Due to the rush of time, most of the workers were unwilling to spend a long time in interviews, and some questions they wanted to ask did not receive much feedback. However, with the help from 我的打工网 and U-Corp, the three students finally collected relatively abundant data and feedback. Hours of recordings and nearly 400 returned valid questionnaires built a solid foundation for the next stage of the project.
Ziqi Li is interviewing job seekers
Speaking of the most impressive part of the field study, the team expressed that the commodity prices and consumption in the migrant worker community seem to have a parallel world. The forms and methods of service provision are also different. For example, daily-rent apartments are the most popular form of accommodation in the living area around the factory. Although most large factories provide their workers with dormitories, the daily-rent apartment is more suitable for workers who receive a daily salary and commute between two jobs. They also found that although the geographical location of the community varies greatly, the prices of some services are consistent, “68 yuan to perm, 15 yuan for washing, cutting and drying hair, 20 yuan for doing manicure…these prices are too impressive so that we can blurt it out.” They said, “However, in our opinion, the professional level of these small stores may be no different from the stores around us with two or three times their price.” Time went quickly in the two days, and the field research was undoubtedly rewarding. Facing fresh food at such a low price, “we don’t even know where to point our cameras.”
The field investigation has just come to an end, and the group members are still in the stage of analyzing the collected data at the time of our interview. How to analyze and utilize data has become the most concerning issue now. They originally planned to display the raw data in their final report directly, but Professor Ren from the U-Corp encouraged them to conduct a more in-depth analysis of the collected data instead of simply displaying it. They are also not planning to limit the data to simple research issues such as consumer psychology or consumer behavior, but like an exploratory research report, and they are trying to find more possibilities with the existing data. Jiaying Li also hopes to cooperate with professors from the Department of Economics to explore the further possibilities of conducting interviews and developing this research into a publishable academic article.
Boyue Center, Kunshan
Speaking of advice to future U-Corp applicants, they mentioned the word “matching.” Every year, the U-Corp provides a variety of projects to students, all of which seem very interesting, but it is not easy to really match personal interests with the project content. If you apply without a clear understanding of the research content of the project, it will be difficult for you to improve on the project. However, they also believe that it is essential to make brave choices. As one of the few projects in the school that cooperates with companies to solve real-life challenges, U-Corp provides possible solutions to problems, cultivating students’ working and research skills and bringing them a sense of achievement.
Conclusion
The opportunity to be involved in a project like this is precious. Reviewing the previous U-Corp projects, there seem a few provides opportunities for students to settle down and interact with certain groups in Kunshan City. It is undoubtedly fortunate for the team to have such a chance to develop one’s own skills and gain a deeper understanding of the human world.
In the future, there will be more gentle reformers to bravely explore the direction of their interests in U-Corp projects.
