Faculty: Management and Organization

Paul S. Adler is Professor of Management and Organization, of Sociology, and of Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California. He holds the Marshall Business School's Harold Quinton Chair in Business Policy. He began his education in Australia and moved to France in 1974, where he received his doctorate in Economics and Management while working as a Research Economist for the French government. He came to the USA in 1981, and before arriving at USC in 1991, he was affiliated with the Brookings Institution, Columbia University, Harvard Business School, and Stanford's School of Engineering.

Eric Anicich studies the forms and functions of social hierarchy within groups. His research has been published in leading academic journals including Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Psychological Science. Additionally, accounts of his work have appeared in numerous popular media and business outlets including Forbes, The Economist, CNN, New York Times, TIME, Sports Illustrated, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, Fast Company, and the Harvard Business Review. In 2021, Poets & Quants recognized him as one of the “Top 50 Undergraduate Business Professors.”

Professor Aponte-Moreno specializes in leadership development, strategic management, and cross-cultural negotiations. His research is interdisciplinary and examines how the arts in general, and theater in particular, can contribute to the development of leadership skills in business settings. His work draws on more than twenty years of experience in the theater. Prior to joining academia, he worked in global corporate finance for international financial firms including Crédit Lyonnais (France), Mizuho (Japan) and ED&F Mann (UK). He is originally from Venezuela and has lived and worked in the US, France and the UK.

Christine Beckman is the Price Family Chair in Social Innovation and Professor at the USC Price School of Public Policy with joint appointments in Marshall and the Department of Sociology. She is the Director of the Price Center for Social Innovation and the current Editor at Administrative Science Quarterly. She previously served as Past Division Chair of the Organization and Management Theory division of the Academy of Management. She has held faculty positions at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, and the Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine. At Maryland, she was the Academic Director for the Center for Social Value Creation, diversity officer, and facilitated a peer network for junior faculty women. At UC Irvine, she was a Chancellor’s Fellow from 2008-2011 and Faculty Director of the Don Beall Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She was the 2006 Western Academy of Management Ascendent Scholar.

Professor Beckman has published over 20 articles in peer-reviewed journals. She is known for her research on organizational learning, interorganizational networks, inequality, innovation and entrepreneurship, particularly on how collaborative relationships and diverse experiences facilitate organizational change. Her research sites are varied and include urban charter schools, F500 companies, Silicon Valley start-ups, law firms, the U.S. Navy, and German football teams. Her 2020 book, Dreams of the Overworked: Living, Working and Parenting in the Digital Age, is an ethnographic account of working parents efforts to be Ideal Workers, Perfect Parents and Ultimate Bodies. The book highlights how technology intensifies these myths of perfection, celebrates the people who actually do the work of scaffolding the dreams of those around them, and reveals the hidden sources of gender inequality in everyday life. She is a native Californian and received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford University.

Shaun Harper teaches MBA students and advises companies on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). He has worked with more than 400 businesses, agencies, and institutions; published 12 books and over 100 academic papers; and procured $21.8 million in foundation grants and $15.1 million in contracts for the center he directs at USC. His research has been cited in more than 23,000 published studies, in multiple amicus briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court, and on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Black Enterprise, Washington Business Journal, Business Insider, and hundreds of other news outlets have quoted Shaun and featured his research. He has been interviewed on CNN, MSNBC, ESPN, and NPR. Articles he has written for Forbes, Rolling Stone, Washington Post, CNN.com, Fortune, and Los Angeles Times have been read by more than 3 million people.

The U.S. Air Force, Nike, Zoom, T-Mobile, Google, Microsoft, Mattel, NBC Universal, Anheuser-Busch, Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and the City of Los Angeles are among the organizations with which Dr. Harper has worked. Prior to USC, Dr. Harper was a tenured full professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2023, the Los Angeles Times featured Harper as one of 111 DEI leaders across industries who are driving change in the nation’s second-largest city.

Gerard J Tellis (PhD Michigan) is Neely Chaired Professor of American Enterprise, Director of the Institute for Outlier Research in Marketing, Director of the Center for Global Innovation, at the USC Marshall School of Business. Dr. Tellis is an expert in innovation, advertising, social media, new product growth, and global market entry. He has published 7 books and over 200 papers (http://www.gtellis.net ) that have won over 30,000 citations in Google Scholar. His publications have won over 25 awards. He is Past-President ISMS and was an Associate Editor of Marketing Science and Journal of Marketing Research.

Reza Bavafa has twenty-five years of consulting and executive management experience. For six years he directed a strategic planning team at AT&T evaluating and recommending strategic opportunities for advanced communications services. He then joined IBM where he led strategic outsourcing accounts involving large global teams. His experience spans multiple industries--communications, health, aerospace, auto, media and entertainment-- and Fortune 500 companies including Providence Health, Kaiser Permanente, Boeing, Nissan, and The Walt Disney Company. For three years he also led the Executive Leadership Program for IBM Global Business Services on the effective leadership of global accounts.

James Bogle joined USC Marshall School of Business in 2013 with a background in leadership, public policy and international affairs following 25 years of service in the U.S. Army. James commanded two artillery units and led troops in combat in Iraq. Later, he served on the staff of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the Office of European and NATO Policy. He also served at the U.S. Embassy in Paris coordinating a range of conventional and special military operations with the French Joint Staff. He completed his military career as an instructor at the U.S. Air Force Academy. James is now the Director of the Master of Business for Veterans program and an Adjunct Professor at Marshall. He holds a BA in History from Arizona State University, an MA in International Relations from USC Dornsife and a Master of Business for Veterans from the USC Marshall.

Phil Birnbaum-More specializes in competitive strategy formulation and implementation, especially in high technology firms in global markets. He has published three books on R&D management and organization design and more than 100 articles in scholarly and practitioner journals.

Judith Blumenthal is an expert in strategic management; organizational design and implementation; corporate governance; and retailing. Her research has been published in the Journal of Management Inquiry, the Journal of Organizational Change Management, Performance Improvement Quarterly, and Human Resources Management, among others.

John Boudreau is recognized for breakthrough research on human capital, talent, and sustainable competitive advantage. His research studies the future of the global HR profession, HR measurement and analytics, decision-based HR, executive mobility, HR information systems, and organizational staffing and development.

Trudi Ferguson has consulted widely with large and small organizations in many areas of organizational development including strategic planning, team building, executive coaching, diversity, and woman's issues.

Warren Bennis is one of the world's leading experts on leadership. A lecturer, consultant, and writer, Professor Bennis has been an advisor to four U.S. presidents, including John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. He is the author of numerous books, including the classic On Becoming a Leader. He chairs the advisory board of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University Kennedy's School of Government. Professor Bennis is a former Distinguished Research Fellow at Harvard Business School, former president of the University of Cincinnati, as well as the former Provost and Executive Vice-President of SUNY-Buffalo.

Robert E. Coffey, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, retired from USC’s Marshall School of Business in 1998 after 35 years of service. During his USC career he was an early director of the Entrepreneur Program, Director of the M.B.A. Program, and served twice as department chair. He co-authored two textbooks in organization and management, was President of the USC Faculty Senate, and served several years on the Senate Executive Board. He was elected to the Fellows of The Academy of Management in 1976.

Larry Greiner is an expert on strategic change, organization growth and management consulting. He has published in Harvard Business Review, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, and Journal of Management Inquiry, and serves on the editorial boards of Academy of Management Education and Learning Journal and the Strategic Management Education Journal. His article, "Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow," was named a "classic" by Harvard Business Review. Professor Greiner received an award for outstanding service to the Management Consulting Division of the Academy of Management, and chaired of two divisions of the Academy of Management.