Jiancai Liao joined Birmingham Business School as an Assistant Professor in Marketing in 2025. He received his PhD in Marketing from Aalto University School of Business (Finland). During his doctoral studies, Johnson held visiting positions at Virginia Tech (USA) and City University of Hong Kong. He will also serve as a Visiting Scholar at the Scandinavian Consortium for Organizational Research (SCANCOR) at Stanford University, a prestigious transatlantic platform fostering advanced inquiry in organizational social science.
Jiancai's research centres on healthcare services, artificial intelligence in services, and platform-based services, with ongoing projects on advice adherence, self-care, elder-care, and service inclusion for vulnerable populations. Methodologically, he combines laboratory and field experiments, empirical modelling, meta-analysis, and interviews. His work has been published in journals such as Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Advances in Consumer Research, Aggression and Violent Behavior, and Advances in Psychological Science, and he has several projects under review at leading journals in marketing and other business fields.
Jiancai's has secured multiple competitive research grants as a principal investigator from organisations including the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, the Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, the Paulo Foundation, the Matti Lehti Fund, and the Foundation for Economic Education. He has also received several awards, including the Paper Publication Award from Aalto University, an EMAC Doctoral Consortium Fellowship, and the Best Conference Paper Award at the FAMAC Conference.
In terms of teaching, Johnson has experience across undergraduate and postgraduate levels, covering consumer psychology, digital marketing, and the digitalisation of markets. He is particularly interested in leveraging AI to enhance student learning and employability.