Mo Wang to lead research efforts as Associate Dean for Research and Strategic Initiatives

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The University of Florida Warrington College of Business is proud to announce the appointment of Dr. Mo Wang as its inaugural Associate Dean for Research and Strategic Initiatives. Wang currently holds the Lanzillotti-McKethan Eminent Scholar Chair, is Director of the Human Resource Research Center and is Chair of Warrington’s Department of Management.

“For almost 20 years, Mo has been dedicated to producing and promoting exceptional research, both under his own authorship and, as department chair, among faculty at Warrington,” said Saby Mitra, Warrington College of Business Dean. “His leadership and experience in research that has impacted multiple fields and industries make him an ideal fit for raising Warrington’s stature as a leader in business research. I am so pleased to have him as a member of the team that is taking the College to new heights.” 

As Associate Dean for Research and Strategic Initiatives, Wang is focused on promoting Warrington’s research both across international academic institutions and the University of Florida campus. He is also responsible for the strategy and implementation of the College’s grant and contract research program and other externally funded research programs.

“I look forward to continuing my work with the exceptional faculty, students and staff at the Warrington College of Business,” Wang said. “Together, we will elevate the research reputation of Warrington to a new level both nationally and internationally.”

In his role, Wang has several goals that he hopes to accomplish that are focused on promoting research at Warrington, sourcing external research funding opportunities and nurturing research at the student level, including:

• Promote funded research opportunities among faculty by building infrastructure and creating incentives for securing external funding and by better connecting Warrington faculty to other pockets of research excellence across the UF campus.
• Provide more opportunities to promote research across the entire Warrington campus – from undergraduate students to faculty. For undergraduates, this means sharing opportunities to be involved with hands-on research. For graduate students, the focus will be on creating more resources that enables them to engage in research. For faculty, this will generate more awareness of Warrington research and build partnership with the UF Office of Research. As part of the College’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, Wang is also focused on promoting research opportunities and career paths among minority students.
• Create an interdisciplinary research platform via workshops and small group meetings that engage thought leaders in business research and nurture research network development for junior faculty members and Ph.D. students.
• Encourage and incentivize faculty to take on leadership roles in research, including Editor and Associate Editor roles at top-tier journals within their field.

To date, Wang has published more than 170 peer-reviewed journal articles, 30 book chapters and 5 books. He is known for his research on retirement and older worker employment, occupational health psychology, expatriate and newcomer adjustment, leadership and teams processes, and advanced quantitative methodologies.

Wang has more than 18,500 citations for his work. His h-index, which is a metric that evaluates the cumulative impact of an author’s scholarly output and performance, is 70. An h-index of 60 or more after 20 years of research is “truly exceptional,” according to creator of the h-index Jorge E. Hirsch.

Wang has been with the Warrington College of Business since 2011. His research is well recognized and regarded by major federal funding agencies. Wang’s research program has been supported with more than $5 million from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and various other research foundations and agencies. As a true scientist-practitioner, Wang is also committed to providing students, workers, employers, and policy makers with evidence-based knowledge. His work has been reported extensively by the popular media, such as NPR, BBC, Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Harvard Business Review, and the Washington Post. In 2015, he conducted a Congressional Debriefing on retirement for the U.S. Congress. He also served as an invited speaker for the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team twice, giving talks on retirement (2015) and older worker job search (2016).

He has received numerous awards for his research, including:

• Academy of Management HR Division Scholarly Achievement Award (2008)
• Academy of Management Careers Division Best Paper Award (2009)
• European Union’s Erasmus Mundus Scholarship for Work, Organizational, and Personnel Psychology (2009)
• Emerald Group’s Outstanding Author Contribution Awards (2013 and 2014)
• Society for Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Psychology’s William A. Owens Scholarly Achievement Award (2016)
• Journal of Management Scholarly Impact Award (2017)
• Cummings Scholarly Achievement Award from Academy of Management’s OB Division (2017)
• Early Career Contribution/Achievement Awards from American Psychological Association (2013), Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2013), Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology (2012), Academy of Management’s HR Division (2011) and Research Methods Division (2011), and Society for Occupational Health Psychology (2009)

Wang is an elected Foreign Member of Academia Europaea (MAE) and a Fellow of AOM, APA, APS and SIOP. He was the Editor of The Oxford Handbook of Retirement and an Associate Editor for Journal of Applied Psychology (2010-2020) and currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Work, Aging and Retirement. He was the President of Society for Occupational Health Psychology (2014-2015) and the Director for the Science of Organizations Program at National Science Foundation (2014-2016). He currently serves the Presidential Track for Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology (2021-2024).

Wang earned his Ph.D. in I-O and Developmental Psychology and his master’s degree from Bowling Green State University and his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Peking University in China.