Today I booked my ticket to the Netherlands for my final defense. I will fly from Melbourne via Kuala Lumpur to Amsterdam. Australia – Asia – Europe. About five years ago, I started this trip from Asia with dreams, excitement, and uncertainty. When I was standing alone in the massive arrival hall of Schiphol with my heavy luggage, I asked myself: “Can I manage this PhD thing?”  Well, with support, love, and friendship from three continents, I finally managed!

First of all, I would like to thank Els Gijsbrechts and Dirk Smeesters, who have always believed in my potential more than I did myself, and whom I secretly called my “academic parents”. Els, it has been a great fortune to have you as my supervisor. Your constructive and creative comments often lightened my conventional CB mind and opened a new window when I got stuck in my research. Thank you for your wisdom, patience, openness, and confidence in my ability. For the rest of my life I will benefit from your positive attitude towards research and life, your great sense of humor, and your courage and determinacy. Dirk, thank you for generously sharing your knowledge, experience, and research time with me. I cannot remember how many times I just jumped into your office when I encountered a research problem. You were always patient and helpful to my questions, even if you were extremely busy with your own work. From you, I have learned how to conduct research with a calm, enthusiastic, and optimistic mind.

It is my great honor to have Marnik G. Dekimpe, Siegfried Dewitte, Stijn M. J. van Osselaer, and Diederik A. Stapel as my committee members. Thank you for your time and effort in reading my dissertation. I am very grateful for your inspiring and constructive comments.

My sincere thanks to all my colleagues at the Marketing Department at Tilburg University. You constitute such a friendly, supportive, and inspiring group! Marnik, I need to stress my gratitude to you again for your kindness, time, and contributions to my work. I truly appreciate the time you squeezed out of your busy schedule. Your comments and feedback have always been very helpful. Hans, I learned a lot from you on how to be a fair and good teacher, as well as how to play squash. Thank you for sharing your experiences and being straightforward. I also highly appreciate all the help from Heidi, Scarlett, Nienke, Nancy, and Ank in all the administrative work.

Manwai and Maciej, my academic brothers, I am so grateful to start my PhD with you guys. It was great to feel that you were always standing there with me, no matter what happened. Thank you for being there when I needed to talk and when I needed strong guys to move around Tilburg. Fleur and Carlos, you are the best office mates I could have had. Fleur, thank you for all your help and support during the first two years of my PhD. Your information and warm heart made life so much easier. I appreciate all the joy, sadness, dinner, gossips … we shared. Carlos, I am still missing all the fascinating discussions we had in the office. Hopefully, one day, we could implement one of the various topics we have come up with. Thank you for all the wonderful times and your trust. Berk and Robert, thank you for all your support at and outside work. Ralf, Rutger, Marta, Maike, Valentina, Rita, George, Femke, and Didi, I will always have happy memories when I think back to the dinner and chats I had with you.

PhD life certainly comprises more than work. Ruud, we have spent a lot of brilliant time together.  I know you are the friend I can always count on when I am down. Thank you for your support. Kathi, thank you for sharing houses with me and introducing me to so many new and exciting friends. Yanqin, Yuping, Yang, Wei, Chang, it feels like yesterday when we enjoyed those Chinese dinner parties and card games. It has always been so relaxing to hang around with you. Thank you for being there and making me feel at home. I would like to thank all the friends that I made at CentER and Tilburg University, especially, Vladimir, Zhen, Johannes, and Flora (Yu).

I finalized my PhD at Monash University, Australia, with enormous help from many friends. Harmen Oppewal, I am very grateful that you provided me this great opportunity to work with you and to experience a completely new culture. Your wisdom, encouragement, support, and openness make Monash an awesome place to work at. Sophie (Shanfei) and Dewi, without your help and friendship, I could not have settled down so fast and then concentrated on my work. Our lunches, girl chats, shopping trips … I am truly blessed to meet you. Marcus, thank you for proofreading this acknowledgement.

Love and support from my family and friend in China traveled with me all the way. Li Bing, I am still reading some of the books you sent to me. Thank you for listening to my sophisticated explanations of my research projects. Huang Jia, matching my Dutch PhD experience with your Chinese one is a very interesting exercise. It has been a great fortune to go through all stages of life with you since primary school. Yin Yanqin, I am so lucky that you decided to pursue a Master in the Netherlands. You are such a genuine and enthusiastic friend. Thank you for bringing so much fun and passion to my life.  

爸爸妈妈，虽然不在我身边，你们是给我支持最多的人。你们的爱和理解一直支持着我走了那么久、那么远。谢谢你们的包容，我总是那么任性；谢谢你们的耐心，我总是把对别人的不耐烦都扔给你们；谢谢你们让我懂得爱、珍惜爱。