Chenwei Liao Recognized with Journal of Management Best Reviewer Award and Impact Award Finalist Honor

Dr. Chenwei Liao

Michigan State University School of Human Resources and Labor Relations professor Chenwei Liao has received the 2026 Journal of Management Best Reviewer Award for the second consecutive year and has been selected as a finalist for the journal's 2026 Impact Award.

The dual recognition highlights Liao's contributions to management scholarship through both his research and his service to the academic community.

Liao received the 2026 Journal of Management Best Reviewer Award, following his selection for the same honor in 2025. The consecutive awards recognize his contributions as a peer reviewer for one of the leading journals in the management field. Best Reviewer honors recognize reviewers whose work helps strengthen the quality and development of research submitted for publication.

In addition, Liao has been selected as a finalist for the 2026 Journal of Management Impact Award for the article "Serving You Depletes Me? A Leader-Centric Examination of Servant Leadership Behaviors," co-authored with Hun Whee Lee, Russell E. Johnson and Szu-Han (Joanna) Lin.

Published in Journal of Management, the study takes a leader-centered approach to understanding servant leadership, examining how engaging in servant leadership behaviors can affect the leaders who perform them. The researchers used two experience-sampling studies to examine how leaders' servant leadership behaviors vary from day to day and how those behaviors influence leaders' subsequent experiences and actions.

The findings showed that servant leadership can have different consequences for leaders depending on their individual characteristics. For leaders who were lower in perspective taking, engaging in daily servant leadership was associated with greater same-day depletion and increased withdrawal from their leadership role the following day. For leaders who frequently engaged in perspective taking, however, servant leadership was associated with lower depletion and less subsequent laissez-faire behavior.

The research provides a more nuanced perspective on servant leadership by examining not only how leaders' behaviors affect employees, but also how those behaviors affect the leaders themselves.

Liao's consecutive Best Reviewer Awards also reflect his ongoing contributions to the field through academic service. Peer review plays an important role in maintaining the quality of scholarly research, with reviewers providing detailed feedback that helps authors strengthen their work and assists journals in evaluating manuscripts.

Together, the 2025 and 2026 Best Reviewer Awards and 2026 Impact Award finalist recognition highlight Liao's contributions as both a scholar producing impactful research and a reviewer supporting the development of research by other scholars.

About Chenwei Liao

Chenwei Liao is a professor in the Michigan State University School of Human Resources and Labor Relations. His research focuses on organizational behavior, leadership, employee motivation and workplace relationships. His scholarship has appeared in leading journals in management and organizational psychology.