Anna Mayo

Anna Loomis McCandless Career Development Professor of Organizational Behavior

Mayo’s research explores what characterizes and supports effective teamwork in modern organizations. For decades, organizations have used teams as a fundamental building block for getting work done. But new technologies, greater levels of specialization, and volatile environments are leading organizations to adopt new team practices. In organizations and cross-organization partnerships, teams now often form quickly to tackle specific projects and then disband just as fast. People also tend to spread their time across multiple teams or projects concurrently, and a given team’s members may change over time due to scheduling conflicts or shifting project needs. These dynamic ways of organizing teams create the potential for more-agile work, but they can undermine important team and individual outcomes.

Mayo studies teams in both the lab and the field (from health care settings to sales and cross-sector teams), using a range of methods. Her work has been published in leading management journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Annals, Academy of Management Discoveries, and Organization Science, as well as medical journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and BMJ Leader.

Mayo received a Ph.D. and M.S. in Organizational Behavior & Theory from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business, and a B.A. in Psychology from Denison University. Before joining Heinz College, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow and Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. Prior to entering academia, Mayo worked in the nonprofit human services sector for the National Assembly Human Services.

Publications

Selected Publications

Mayo, A. T., Woolley, A. W., John, L., Witchel, S. F., March, C. & Nowalk, A. (forthcoming). Coordination in dynamic teams: Investigating a learning–productivity tradeoff. Organization Science.
Aggarwal, I., Mayo, A. T., Murase, T., Zhang, E. Y., & Aven, B. L., Woolley, A. W. (2024). Cognitive versatility and adaptation to fluid participation in hospital emergency department teams. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1144638
Mayo, A. T., Myers, C.G., Bucuvalas, J.C., Feng, S., & Juliano, C.E. (2023). Supporting robust teamwork—Bridging technology and organization science. New England Journal of Medicine, 388(22), 2019-2021.
Woolley, A.W., Chow, R. M., Mayo, A.T., Riedl, C., & Chang, J.W. (2023). Collective attention and collective intelligence: The role of hierarchy and team gender composition. Organization Science, 34(3), 1315–1331.
Mayo, A.T. (2022). Syncing up: A process model of emergent interdependence in dynamic teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 67(3), 821-864.
Kerrissey, M.J., Mayo, A.T., & Edmondson, A.C. (2021) Joint problem-solving orientation in fluid cross-boundary teams. Academy of Management Discoveries, 7(3), 381-405.
Mayo, A.T., Myers, C.G., & Sutcliffe, K.M. (2021) Organizational science and health care. Academy of Management Annals, 15(2), 537-576.
Mayo, A.T. & Woolley, A.W. (2021). Variance in group ability to transform resources into performance, and the role of coordinated attention. Academy of Management Discoveries, 7(2), 225-246.
Mayo, A.T., Woolley, A.W., & Chow, R.M. (2020). Unpacking participation and influence: Diversity's countervailing effects on expertise use in groups. Academy of Management Discoveries, 6(2), 300-319.
Mayo, A.T. (2020). Teamwork in a pandemic: Insights from management research. BMJ Leader, 4, 53-56.