Mary Dean Lee

Desautels Faculty of Management

Organizational Behaviour

Dr. Mary Dean Lee joined McGill's Faculty of Management in 1982. She had previously taught at the University of New Hampshire and was a Research Fellow at the Harvard Business School after completing her doctorate in Organizational Behavior at Yale University in 1981. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 1991 and Full Professor in 2004. She also served a term as Associate Dean and Director of the Undergraduate Program from 1995 to 1997 and was Area Coordinator of the Organizational Behavior group from 1998 to 2006. Prior to assuming her first administrative post, she was invited to attend the Summer Institute for Women in Higher Education Administration at Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia, PA.

Dr. Lee teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Organizational Behavior, Human Resource Management, Managerial Skill Development, Qualitative Research Methods, and Career Development. She received two awards for the design of innovative courses, one in 2000 and another in 2001.

Professional and managerial careers, the changing nature of work and retirement, work and family, and organizational learning are Dr. Lee's current research interests. In Spring 2008, she was awarded a three-year SSHRC grant to research the reinvention of retirement by Baby Boomer professionals and managers in Canada and Australia. Prior to focusing on retirement trends, Dr. Lee completed a research project funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation on Managing Professionals in the 21st Century: The Evolution and Institutionalization of New Work Forms. This follow-up study (2002-04) was based on research carried out from 1996 to 1999 on reduced-load work arrangements among professionals and managers in 43 corporations across a variety of industries. This earlier study was also supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York, as well as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Results from the original study have been reported in chapters in a number of edited books, such as The New World of Work, Work-Life Integration and Gender, Work Stress & Health, as well as in articles published in Academy of Management Journal, Human Resource Management, and Journal of Management Development. In addition, the findings from this project received a great deal of attention in the popular press and media, including American, Canadian and European newspapers. Dr. Lee was interviewed live on two national television networks in Canada and had an interview taped for a special program on NBC in New York. She was also featured on PBS radio and CBC radio across North America. She won the award at McGill University for the Professor most quoted in the media in 1999. Dr. Lee has also studied part-time work among doctors, lawyers, and accountants, and how women professionals combine career and family over the life span.

At conferences convened by organizations such as the Conference Boards of Canada and the U.S., Dr. Lee has been invited to address a variety of constituencies in the business community. She has also participated in a number of professional networks that bring academics and practitioners together, for example, the Wharton Work/Life Roundtable and the Boston College Roundtable on Work and Family. She also regularly organizes symposia and presents papers in the Careers Division of the Academy of Management. In 1990 she organized a symposium at the International Congress of Applied Psychology in Kyoto, Japan on the topic of international perspectives on work-family linkages.