Dr. Zhi (Aaron) Cheng is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems and Innovation in the Department of Management at the London School of Economics (LSE).
Dr. Cheng studies the economics of digitisation and AI and their implications for sustainable business and society. Grounded in experimental and observational evidence, his research identifies causal effects and structural mechanisms by which digital innovation redistributes key inputs — time, space, attention, labour, and capital — and transforms individual choices and institutional dynamics. His work has been published in Management Science, Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, and Journal of Information Technology.
At LSE, Dr. Cheng has developed and taught courses including Managing Artificial Intelligence (MG4J8), Research Design for Studies in Digital Innovation (MY401), Social Computing, Data Analytics, and Information Services (MG486), and Information Systems and Innovation: Concepts and Perspectives (MG478). In 2021, he was nominated for the LSE Students’ Union Teaching Award on “Mentoring & Personal Development” and has been recognised several times as one of the Department of Management’s “Top 10 Lecture/Class Teachers.”
Dr. Cheng serves on the editorial review boards of Information Systems Research and Journal of the Association for Information Systems, two of the three top journals in the field of Information Systems (IS). He has actively reviewed for Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, Management Science,and others. He has also organised and chaired sessions at ICIS, CIST, WISE, ECIS, PACIS,and INFORMS Annual Meeting.
Dr. Cheng received the Best Reviewer Award at ICIS 2019 and the Best Associate Editor Awards at ICIS (2022) and ECIS (2023). He is an AIS Distinguished Member and an INFORMS Senior Member.
Dr. Cheng has co-chaired the Department of Management’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee, where he led initiatives to share best practices, improve communication and visibility, and advise on student-led events.
Beyond LSE, Dr. Cheng serves as the External Examiner for the Postgraduate Diploma in AI for Business at the University of Oxford.
Prior to joining LSE in 2019, Dr. Cheng earned a Ph.D. in Business Administration (Management Information Systems) from Temple University in Philadelphia, USA. He holds an MiM in Management Science and Engineering from Renmin University of China and previously worked at IBM in Beijing, China.
View CV (PDF)
Information Systems and Innovation Faculty Research Group