Media Releases

Rotman professor receives outstanding educator award

August 9, 2010

Toron­to / Mon­tre­al — Ani­ta McGa­han, a pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment is the recip­i­ent of the Acad­e­my of Man­age­ment Busi­ness Pol­i­cy and Strat­e­gy Divi­sion’s 2010 Irwin Out­stand­ing Edu­ca­tor Award.

Prof. McGa­han, who holds the Rot­man Chair in Man­age­ment at the Rot­man School and is cross appoint­ed to the Munk School of Pub­lic Affairs, was pre­sent­ed with the award yes­ter­day dur­ing a recep­tion at the Acad­e­my of Man­age­men­t’s annu­al con­fer­ence in Mon­tre­al. In her accep­tance remarks, she said that she was hum­bled and hon­ored. Rot­man Prof. Joanne Oxley and Dean Roger Mar­tin also spoke dur­ing a trib­ute to Prof. McGa­han.

The award is designed to rec­og­nize a per­son who has demon­strat­ed a long-term com­mit­ment to and exper­tise in edu­cat­ing stu­dents. This year’s award is giv­en specif­i­cal­ly for con­tri­bu­tions to teach­ing stu­dents in MBA, under­grad­u­ate stu­dents, or exec­u­tive edu­ca­tion pro­grams. In nam­ing Prof. McGa­han as the win­ner, the award com­mit­tee not­ed her “out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the stu­dents she has taught, to the col­leagues whose teach­ing she has improved, to the cours­es and course mate­ri­als she has devel­oped, and to the man­age­ment under­stand­ing that her research has cre­at­ed.”

Prof. McGa­han earned her B.A. degree in Human­i­ties from North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty, where she was elect­ed to Phi Beta Kap­pa, as well as an M.B.A (with high dis­tinc­tion as a Bak­er Schol­ar) from Har­vard Busi­ness School and M.A. and Ph.D. in Busi­ness Eco­nom­ics from Har­vard Grad­u­ate School of Arts & Sci­ences. Pri­or to join­ing the Rot­man School in 2007, she taught at Boston Uni­ver­si­ty and Har­vard Busi­ness School. In addi­tion to her affil­i­a­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, she is cur­rent­ly a Senior Asso­ciate at the Insti­tute for Strat­e­gy and Com­pet­i­tive­ness at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty and Chief Econ­o­mist in the Divi­sion of Glob­al Health and Human Rights at the Mass­a­chu­setts Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. McGa­han pre­vi­ous­ly held vis­it­ing aca­d­e­m­ic appoint­ments at Har­vard Med­ical School, Lon­don Busi­ness School, the Aus­tralian Grad­u­ate School of Man­age­ment, and Stan­ford Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness.

Prof. McGa­han’s research inves­ti­gates the dynam­ics of com­pet­i­tive advan­tage and indus­try evo­lu­tion. In addi­tion, some of her newest work exam­ines pri­vate mil­i­tary com­pa­nies and she is also look­ing at orga­ni­za­tion­al mod­els in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, med­ical devices and health-deliv­ery sec­tors of emerg­ing economies. She is the author of How Indus­tries Evolve (HBS Press, 2004) and more than one hun­dred pub­lished mate­ri­als, includ­ing aca­d­e­m­ic arti­cles, case stud­ies, and notes. She is Asso­ciate Edi­tor of the Strate­gic Man­age­ment Jour­nal and Man­age­ment Sci­ence, and sits on the edi­to­r­i­al boards of sev­er­al oth­er jour­nals, includ­ing the Acad­e­my of Man­age­ment Review and Strate­gic Orga­ni­za­tion.

Prof. McGa­han has taught cours­es in strat­e­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, Har­vard Busi­ness School, Lon­don Busi­ness School and Boston Uni­ver­si­ty. At each uni­ver­si­ty and at all lev­els of teach­ing, she has received rewards for out­stand­ing teach­ing and she is con­sis­tent­ly ranked as among the best fac­ul­ty in every pro­gram in which she teach­es.

The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to is redesign­ing busi­ness edu­ca­tion for the 21st cen­tu­ry with a cur­ricu­lum based on Inte­gra­tive Think­ing. Locat­ed in the world’s most diverse city, the Rot­man School fos­ters a new way to think that enables the design of cre­ative busi­ness solu­tions. The School is cur­rent­ly rais­ing $200 mil­lion to ensure Cana­da has the world-class busi­ness school it deserves. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

For more infor­ma­tion:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Voice 416.946.3818
E‑mail mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca