Kaye Jennifer Thorn is a New Zealand management and human resources academic, and is a full professor at Massey University.
Thorn completed a Master's thesis titled Public participation in resource allocation at the University of Canterbury in 1984, and worked as a tourism consultant and an economic analyst at the New Zealand Treasury before moving into academia.
She completed a PhD titled Flight of the kiwi: an exploration of motives and behaviours of self-initiated mobility at Massey University in 2008.
[4] Thorn researches career mobility and the motivations of people living and working abroad, including such topics as 'the brain drain'.
[3][5] Her paper on how couples use strategies to manage hybrid work with Dr Joanne Mutter of the University of Auckland won the award for Best Paper Aligned to the Conference Theme – Common Good Human Resources Management at the 5th Human Resources International Conference in 2024.