SPEAKER: Dr. Haibo Liu, Keck Graduate Institute (HKUST)

TIME/DATE: 2026.6.2  10：00

CLASSROOM: A403

ABSTRACT

Professional employees frequently engage in repeated tasks that vary in experienced meaningfulness. In this paper, we examine how a meaningful task experience spills over to affect performance when the task is next repeated. We hypothesize and find that exposure to an acute 9-1-1 emergency call improves the subsequent performance of Emergency Medical Service (EMS) crews through a motivational spillover effect. Leveraging data from 57 million 9-1-1 calls across the United States and exploiting the quasi-random assignment of calls to EMS crews, we show that response times improve following a life-threatening emergency relative to a routine call. This motivational spillover is transient, dissipating within four hours, and is strongest when prior exposure to acute calls has been infrequent. The effect also diminishes with crew fatigue. Robustness checks help rule out key alternative explanations, including adrenaline or heightened salience, while supplemental interview evidence supports meaningful task experiences as the mechanism arising from reduced discrepancies between job expectations and reality. Our findings highlight the role of expectation–reality gaps in sustaining motivation and performance in intrinsically motivated occupations and suggest that strategically allocating meaningful tasks throughout the workday may enhance employee performance.

GUEST BIO

Haibo Liu is an Assistant Professor of Management at Keck Graduate Institute, part of the Claremont Colleges in Los Angeles. He will join the HKUST School of Business in Fall 2026. Haibo received his PhD from INSEAD. His research focuses on strategic human capital and organizational learning, with the overarching goal of helping companies build a workforce that drives innovation, productivity, and decision-making. Haibo’s papers have won several best paper awards at the Academy of Management and the Strategic Management Annual Meetings. His work has appeared in the Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, and Production and Operations Management.