Management and Marketing - Research Publications

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    EcoToxChip: A next-generation toxicogenomics tool for chemical prioritization and environmental management
    Basu, N ; Crump, D ; Head, J ; Hickey, G ; Hogan, N ; Maguire, S ; Xia, J ; Hecker, M (Wiley, 2019-02-01)
    Chemical contamination of natural ecosystems is regarded as one of our planet's greatest threats (Landrigan et al. 2018). Contaminant‐related phenomena such as malformed frogs, fish with tumors, and dwindling bird populations increasingly fuel societal concerns. Legislation in North America and Europe mandates the assessment and reduction of risk for thousands of commercially important chemical substances used by society and released into the environment. For example, large‐scale efforts such as the Chemicals Management Plan in Canada, the European Union's Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) program, and the US Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA's) ToxCast program under the Toxic Substances Control Act (1976) were implemented to address legislative obligations to identify, prioritize, and take action on chemicals found to be harmful. However, these regulatory programs face significant challenges. The number of chemical substances for which toxicity data are required is tremendous and backlogged (e.g., 23 000 initially in Canada; 85 000 in the United States; upward of 101 000 in the European Union) and continues to grow by approximately 500 to 1000 new substances each year. In addition, regulations such as Canada's Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulations (section 36, Fisheries Act), the US National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, and the European Union's Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) mandate the monitoring of municipal and industrial effluents with regard to their potential impacts on aquatic ecosystem health. These programs require the testing of complex environmental samples (e.g., water, effluents, and sediments) for compliance; however, treatment and remediation efforts represent huge, unresolved challenges for chemicals management stakeholders, including those in regulatory agencies and industry.
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    Factors Affecting the Perception of New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) in the Ecotoxicology Community
    Mondou, M ; Hickey, GM ; Rahman, HMT ; Maguire, S ; Pain, G ; Crump, D ; Hecker, M ; Basu, N (Wiley, 2020-03-01)
    Given current legislative mandates to assess the safety of thousands of chemicals and the slow pace at which conventional testing proceeds, there is a need to accelerate chemical risk assessment. Governments and businesses are increasingly interested in new approach methodologies (NAMs) that promise to reduce costs and delays. We explore 5 sociological factors within the ecotoxicology community that can influence the perception of NAMs: 1) professional profile (educational cohort, employer), 2) internal science communication within professional forums, 3) concern for “error cost,” 4) collaboration across stakeholders, and 5) fundamental beliefs regarding toxicology. We conducted an online survey (n = 171; 2018) asking participants about their experiences and perspectives at events of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) to assess 1) how NAMs are discussed compared to conventional testing and 2) how respondents perceive their viability. We developed ordered logistic regression (OLR) models to understand the influence of exploratory variables (cohort, core views on toxicology, frequency of collaboration) on respondents' evaluation of the viability of different NAMs. Our results showed that 1) NAMs were more likely than conventional methods to be challenged in forum discussions, which may be fueled by concerns for error costs in regulatory decision making; 2) perceptions of the viability of NAMs tended to follow a “pattern of familiarity,” whereby respondents that were more knowledgeable about a test method tended to find it more viable; 3) respondents who agreed with the Paracelsus maxim had a greater likelihood of finding conventional testing viable; and 4) the more a respondent reported collaborating with industry on alternative testing strategies, the more likely she or he was to report that NAMs were less viable. These results suggest that there are professional and organizational barriers to greater acceptance of NAMs that can be addressed through a social learning process within the professional community. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2020;16:269–281.
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    Drivers of and Obstacles to the Adoption of Toxicogenomics for Chemical Risk Assessment: Insights from Social Science Perspectives.
    Pain, G ; Hickey, G ; Mondou, M ; Crump, D ; Hecker, M ; Basu, N ; Maguire, S (The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), 2020-10)
    BACKGROUND: Some 20 y ago, scientific and regulatory communities identified the potential of omics sciences (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics) to improve chemical risk assessment through development of toxicogenomics. Recognizing that regulators adopt new scientific methods cautiously given accountability to diverse stakeholders, the scope and pace of adoption of toxicogenomics tools and data have nonetheless not met the ambitious, early expectations of omics proponents. OBJECTIVE: Our objective was, therefore, to inventory, investigate, and derive insights into drivers of and obstacles to adoption of toxicogenomics in chemical risk assessment. By invoking established social science frameworks conceptualizing innovation adoption, we also aimed to develop recommendations for proponents of toxicogenomics and other new approach methodologies (NAMs). METHODS: We report findings from an analysis of 56 scientific and regulatory publications from 1998 through 2017 that address the adoption of toxicogenomics for chemical risk assessment. From this purposeful sample of toxicogenomics discourse, we identified major categories of drivers of and obstacles to adoption of toxicogenomics tools and data sets. We then mapped these categories onto social science frameworks for conceptualizing innovation adoption to generate actionable insights for proponents of toxicogenomics. DISCUSSION: We identify the most salient drivers and obstacles. From 1998 through 2017, adoption of toxicogenomics was understood to be helped by drivers such as those we labeled Superior scientific understanding, New applications, and Reduced cost & increased efficiency but hindered by obstacles such as those we labeled Insufficient validation, Complexity of interpretation, and Lack of standardization. Leveraging social science frameworks, we find that arguments for adoption that draw on the most salient drivers, which emphasize superior and novel functionality of omics as rationales, overlook potential adopters' key concerns: simplicity of use and compatibility with existing practices. We also identify two perspectives-innovation-centric and adopter-centric-on omics adoption and explain how overreliance on the former may be undermining efforts to promote toxicogenomics. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP6500.
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    Organizations, Risk Translations and the Ecology of Risks: The Discursive Construction of a Novel Risk
    Hardy, C ; Maguire, S (Academy of Management, 2020)
    The contemporary ‘risk society’ is associated with the emergence of a wide range of risks characterised by uncertainty and unfamiliarity. These ‘novel’ risks pose a major challenge for organizations: their negative effects may be significant, but prevailing risk assessment techniques are limited in their ability to identify them. Building on our prior work on the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), this study examines how organizations deal with novel risks. It finds that organizations engage in ‘risk translation’ by translating equivocality associated with the novel risk into more familiar risks, which provide them with a clearer basis and guide for action. As organizations take actions to manage these translated risks, an ‘ecology of risks’ evolves which, over time, allows for the construction of a novel risk. The study contributes to research on organizing and risk by theorizing how organizations respond to novel risks, as well as by highlighting the role of translated organizational risks in constructing novel risks and shaping societal responses to grand challenges.
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    Organizing Risk: Organization and Management Theory for the Risk Society
    Hardy, C ; Maguire, S ; Power, M ; Tsoukas, H (Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2020)
    Risk has become a crucial part of organizing, affecting a wide range of organizations in all sectors. We identify, review and integrate diverse literatures relevant to organizing risk, building on an existing framework that describes how risk is organized in three ‘modes’ – prospectively, in real-time, and retrospectively. We then identify three critical issues in the existing literature: its fragmented nature; its neglect of the tensions associated with each of the modes; and its tendency to assume that the meaning of an object in relation to risk is singular and stable. We provide a series of new insights with regard to each of these issues. First, we develop the concept of a risk cycle that shows how organizations engage with all three modes and transition between them over time. Second, we explain why the tensions have been largely ignored and show how studies using a risk work perspective can provide further insights into them. Third, we develop the concept of risk translation to highlight the ways in the meanings of risks can be transformed and to identify the political consequences of such translations. We conclude the paper with a research agenda to elaborate these insights and ideas further.
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    A New Methodology for Supply Chain Management: Discourse Analysis and its Potential for Theoretical Advancement
    Hardy, C ; Bhakoo, V ; Maguire, S (John Wiley & Sons, 2020-04-01)
    This paper responds to recent calls for methodological diversification and ‘in‐house’ theory development within the discipline of SCM, by introducing discourse analysis to readers of the Journal of Supply Chain Management. One of the merits of discourse analysis is the way in which it ‘problematizes’ taken‐for‐granted aspects of organizational life, including supply chains, to show that what we assume to be natural, inevitable and beneficial is rarely quite so straightforward as it may seem. In addition, through the way in which it emphasizes the interrogation of meaning, discourse analysis can broaden conceptualizations of the supply chain to include actors that have previously been overlooked, such as employees, workers, not‐for‐profit organizations, regulators, consumers and the media. Using examples that are familiar to SCM researchers – the discourses of lean, sustainability, modern slavery and big data – we illustrate how discourse analysis can help to theorize SCM phenomena by problematizing established meanings and revealing how they reproduce power relations among actors. We then show how insights from discourse analysis can complement existing theories of the supply chain and, in so doing, potentially rejuvenate the field of SCM by inspiring novel theory development, opening up different empirical settings, and promoting new ways of analyzing qualitative data.
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    Bridging Practice and Process Research to Study Transient Manifestations of Strategy
    Mirabeau, L ; Maguire, S ; Hardy, C (Wiley, 2018-03-01)
    Research Summary: At the intersection of Strategy Process (SP) and Strategy-as-Practice (SAP) research lies the focal phenomenon they share – strategy, which manifests itself in a variety of ways: intended, realized, deliberate, emergent, unrealized, and ephemeral strategy. We present a methodology comprised of three stages that, when integrated in the manner we suggest, permit a rich operationalization and tracking of strategy content for all manifestations. We illustrate the utility of our methodology for bridging SP and SAP research by theorizing practices that are more likely to give rise to unrealized and ephemeral strategy, identifying their likely consequences, and presenting a research agenda for studying these transient manifestations. MANAGERIAL SUMMARY Managerial Summary: Managers know well that, sometimes for good reasons and other times with negative consequences for organizations, not all aspects of strategic plans are implemented with fidelity, resulting in unrealized strategy; and not all bottom-up projects receive the middle-management support they need to become realized, resulting in ephemeral strategy making. Surprisingly, however, these transient manifestations of strategy receive little attention in the scholarly literature. Our paper addresses this gap by presenting a methodology for tracking all six manifestations of strategy (intended, realized, deliberate, emergent, unrealized, and ephemeral strategy), highlighting the interdependent relations among them. It also describes strategy making practices that are likely to give rise to the two transient manifestations, i.e. unrealized and ephemeral strategy, as well as their consequences for subsequent strategy making.
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    The Janus Faces of Risk
    Hardy, C ; Maguire, S ; Gephart, C ; Miller, C ; Svedberg Helgesson, K (Routledge - Taylor & Francis, 2019)
    This volume provides a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of the latest management and organizational research related to risk, crisis, and emergency management. It is the first volume to present these separate, but related disciplines together. Combined with a distinctly social and organizational science approach to the topics (as opposed to engineering or financial economics), the research presented here strengthens the intellectual foundations of the discipline while contributing to the development of the field.
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    Organizing Processes and the Construction of Risk: A Discursive Approach
    Maguire, S ; Hardy, C (Academy of Management, 2013)
    This study examines the organizing processes through which products “become” risky. Drawing on a case study of chemical risk assessment and management processes in Canada and comparing two chemicals, it identifies a series of enacted practices that bundle into two forms of social ordering: “normalizing” and “problematizing.” By bringing the past to bear differently on organizing processes, these two forms of social ordering structure the discursive work of actors in both their attempts to stabilize and their attempts to destabilize and change meanings of risk objects. As a result, objects “become” risky or safe in different ways.
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    Organizing Risk: Discourse, Power And Riskification
    Hardy, C ; Maguire, S (Academy of Management, 2016)
    Drawing on the work of Foucault, we develop an integrated framework for understanding how risk is organized in three different modes: prospectively, in real time, and retrospectively. We show how these modes are situated in a dominant discourse of risk that leads organizations to normalize risk in particular ways by privileging certain forms of knowledge and authorizing certain risk identities over others. In addition to identifying the common way risk is organized in each mode and showing how it is held in place by the dominant discourse, we propose alternative ways to organize risk that resist this dominant discourse, and we explain why they are difficult to enact. We then extend our analysis by theorizing how, even when it occurs, resistance to the dominant discourse of risk can contribute to “riskification,” with more and more organizing undertaken in the name of risk because of intensification, discipline, and governmentality.