Executive Education
Faculty

Kyle Mayer is the Department Chair and Professor of Strategy for the Department of Management and Organization at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. He has been at USC since receiving his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley in 1999.

Professor Mayer has taught in multiple MBA programs at USC and worked extensively with Marshall Executive Education. He has over twenty years of experience working with executives and running training programs in a wide variety of industries, including but not limited to entertainment, technology, food, aerospace, biotechnology, finance, and health care. He has worked with a variety of corporations, including Microsoft, Northrop Grumman, 20th Century Fox, Allergan, Kaiser Permanente, Hyundai Capital, Farmers Insurance, H-E-B, and many others. He has led training programs focused on strategy and strategic thinking, problem solving, strategic leadership, change management, corporate strategy, partnerships and alliances, and related topics.

Prior to attending Berkeley, Professor Mayer worked as a project manager in Silicon Valley for several years, primarily in the area of new product development. He was a fixture in the core curriculum of the Marshall MBA program for 20 years, and has won awards for his teaching, research and service, including being named the Marshall Educator of the Year in 2006 and winning multiple Golden Apple teaching awards. Dr. Mayer teaches MBA courses on competitive strategy, corporate and global strategy, strategic alliances, and decision-making, and has designed course models for executives on strategy, global strategy, alliances, framing strategic opportunities, organization design and organizational change.

Dr. Mayer’s research examines outsourcing decisions and the management of inter-organizational relationships, with a focus on the strategic role of contracts in managing these relationships. He has published articles in a wide variety of outlets including the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, the Strategic Management Journal, Management Science, the Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, and the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization among others, as well as several book chapters. He has also made numerous presentations at scholarly conferences such as the Academy of Management, the Strategic Management Society, the Wharton Technology Conference and the Atlanta Competitive Advantage Conference among others. He served as an Associate Editor of the Academy of Management Journal from 2010-2013, for the Strategic Management Journal (2016-2020) and the Academy of Management Review (2020-2023).