Steve Maguire McGill University, Canada
BSc Queen's University, Chemical Engineering
MBA University of British Columbia
PhD École des Hautes Études Commerciales
Dr. Maguire is Associate Professor of Strategy and Organization in the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University. He is part of a team of professors teaching in the core of the MBA program (Markets and Globalization); teaches elective courses at both the BCom and MBA levels on topics related to his research (Strategies for Sustainable Development, Managing Organizational Politics); and conducts related seminars in executive education programs. In 2008, he was a Finalist for the Principal’s Prize for Excellence in Teaching; and in 2000 he was awarded a “Royal Bank Faculty Associate in Teaching Fellowship”.
Dr. Maguire’s research focuses on technological and institutional change. Specifically, he seeks to understand the fates of particular technologies (i.e. whether, how and why they are adopted and enter the economy; whether, how and why they are abandoned and exit the economy) and how this is influenced by the activities and strategic behaviours of non-market actors (e.g. non-government organizations, scientists, politicians, and government organizations) in addition to market ones (e.g. firms and their customers). Empirically, he has studied controversial products at the intersection of commercial, scientific and political struggles, such as pharmaceutical products for the treatment of HIV/AIDS and chemical substances linked to environmental problems. With the former, Dr. Maguire investigated the processes by which treatments for HIV/AIDS entered the economy and, in particular, how people living with HIV/AIDS (PHAs) empowered themselves to eventually transform the regulatory and scientific institutions governing the testing, approval and commercialization of pharmaceutical products. With the latter, Dr. Maguire investigated the process by which DDT and other “persistent organic pollutants” (POPs) exited the economy and, in particular, how NGOs, scientists and governments brought about changes to regulatory and scientific institutions that facilitated this. Dr. Maguire’s work on DDT was awarded the prestigious Academy of Management’s “Organization and Natural Environment (ONE)” Best Doctoral Dissertation Award in 2001. He has also served as a peer reviewer for the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances. Linking much of Dr. Maguire’s research is a concern for understanding the role of discourse and discursive struggle in determining the fate of technologies – how new ideas (e.g. that patient groups should have an increased role in the testing of pharmaceutical products; that the precautionary principle should guide chemical risk management) are championed, debated and eventually built into institutions, with consequences for the fates of particular technological artifacts.
In addition to the Academy of Management Journal, Dr. Maguire’s work has appeared in Organization Studies, Health Care Management Review, Global Governance, Greener Management International, Strategic Organization, and Emergence, as well as numerous book chapters. In 2006, Dr. Maguire was named an International Visiting Fellow of the UK’s Advanced Institute of Management, a multi-council initiative of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). In 2007, Dr. Maguire was appointed to the Government of Canada Chemicals Management Plan “Challenge Advisory Panel”, which advises Health Canada and Environment Canada on the application of the precautionary principle and weight of evidence in screening approximately 200 “high priority” chemicals for health and environmental risks (appointed for a term of three years).