Dr Jiancai Liao PhD, MSc, BSc

PhD in Marketing, Aalto University School of Business, Finland, 2025

MSc in Marketing, Sun Yat-sen University, China, 2020

BSc in Marketing, Chongqing University, China, 2017

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, Jiancai held visiting positions at Virginia Tech (USA) and City University of Hong Kong. He is also serving 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, AI in services, and platform-based services, with ongoing projects related to the impact of digitalization on consumer behavior, healthcare policy, health behavior, and consumer well-being. Methodologically, he combines experiments, empirical modelling, meta-analysis, and qualitative methods. His work has been published in journals such as Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, and Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 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. 

In terms of teaching, Jiancai has experience across undergraduate and postgraduate levels, covering consumer psychology, digital marketing, and digitalisation of markets and consumption. He is particularly interested in leveraging AI to enhance student learning and employability.

Marketing and New Technology (Undergraduate)

Individual Company Project (Postgraduate)

Healthcare Services

AI in Services

Platform-based Services

Jiancai's academic background reflects a unique synthesis of behavioral and quantitative traditions. While his primary training is rooted in Consumer Behavior, his doctoral research specializes in quantitative modeling and empirical analysis. This methodological versatility allows him to bridge diverse research streams, utilizing laboratory experiments, field studies, and econometric modeling to derive robust insights. He targets high-impact outlets across a broad spectrum of fields, including Marketing, Tourism, Information Systems, and Operations Management.