Micki Eisenman

Micki Eisenman is a Senior Lecturer in the Organizational Behavior and Strategy and Entrepreneurship Departments at the Hebrew University Business School; she is currently the academic director of the International MBA Program and heads the Strategy and Entrepreneurship Department. Dr. Eisenman earned her PhD in Management from Columbia University, her MBA from Tulane University, and her BA in English and Communications from Hebrew University.

Dr. Eisenman’s research addresses aesthetics and materiality by asking how the physicality of organizational artifacts affects organizational processes such as identity construction, innovation, collective memory, or institutional change. She studies the intersection between physical qualities of materials and their social interpretations; the role of aesthetics throughout the product life cycle, and how organizations communicate by means of aesthetic design. These ideas are tested in the context of innovative architectural and industrial design using field observations, interviews, and archival data.

Before joining the business school faculty, Dr. Eisenman served as an assistant professor at the City University of New York’s Baruch College. Her research has been published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Theory, Human Relations, Advances in Strategic Management, Long-Range Planning, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Journal of Organizational Design, and Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship. In addition to her academic experience, Dr. Eisenman is an Editorial Board Member at the Academy of Management Review and Organization Theory. She is a member of the Academy of Management’s William H. Newman Award Committee, Academy of Management, and European Group of Organizational Studies.

Dr. Eisenman has been awarded several research grants, including the Israel Science Foundation Grant, Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education, International Network Program, the Halbert Center for Canadian Studies at Hebrew University, the Julian Simon Grant, the Marie Curie Reintegration Grant, the PSC-CUNY Research Grant, a Eugene M. Lang Junior Faculty Research Fellowship, and a William Stewart Travel Grant. She also won the Best Developmental Reviewer Award and Best Reviewer Award from the Academy of Management Review.

She teaches the courses Business Policy, Business Entrepreneurship, Social Entrepreneurship, Strategic Management, and Growth Strategies.

Research summary

My research focuses on innovation and materiality. Earlier in my career, I developed the concept of aesthetic innovation, or innovation related to the aesthetic design features of a technology that increase its value based on the design’s ability to convey what the product does, to excite users on the basis of the aesthetic stimulations that it triggers, and to extend the product by increasing its relevance as a status symbol. Since then, I have evolved toward questions that examine the institutional constraints on innovation, and have published work asking how competition based on aesthetic innovation can become a taken-for-granted aspect of competition in an industry. Most currently, I ask how materiality, or the physical, tangible essence of an artifact or technology, is not just a constraint on innovation, but also a basis for affecting the institution wherein the innovation is embedded.

Education

• Columbia Business School, Columbia University New York, NY
  Ph.D. in Management May 2006
• A. B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University New Orleans, LA
  Master of Business Administration August 1999
• Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jerusalem, Israel
  Bachelor of Arts June 1996

Employment

• The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem School of Business Administration
  Senior Lecturer (Tenured) 2017-
  Lecturer 2010-2017
• University of Maryland, Smith School of Business
  Visiting Scholar 2019-2020
• Baruch College, Zicklin School of Business
  Assistant Professor 2006 - 2010
  Instructor 2005 - 2006

Awards & Honors

Best Developmental Reviewer Award, Academy of Management Review, 2020

Israel Science Foundation Grant (ILS125,000), 2018-2021

Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education, International Network Program, (with Eva Boxenbaum, Michal Frenkel, Renate Meyer, Silviya Svejenova, & Tammar Zilber) ($44,000), 2018-2020

The Halbert Center for Canadian Studies at The Hebrew University, funding for Join Israeli-Canadian workshop on Socio-Materiality (with Gili Drori, Michal Frenkel & Tammar Zilber) (CAD12,000), 2018-2019

Best Reviewer Award, Academy of Management Review, 2017

Eisenman, Micki. 2013. Understanding Aesthetic Design in the Context of Technological Evolution. Academy of Management Review 38(3): 332-351

Academy of Management Review Paper of the Year Award Nominee, 2014

Julian Simon Grant ($4,000), 2011

Marie Curie Reintegration Grant (€100,000), 2010-2014

PSC-CUNY Research Grant ($3,200), 2009

Eugene M. Lang Junior Faculty Research Fellowships ($6,200), 2008

PSC-CUNY Research Grant ($3,990), 2008

Cultivating Taste: Constructing the Importance of Product Aesthetics in Technological Industries.

William H. Newman Award Nominee, Managerial and Organizational Cognition

Division, Academy of Management Conference, Philadelphia, PA, 2007

Organization and Management Theory Division Best Reviewer Award: OMT ABCD (Above and Beyond the Call of Duty) Award. Academy of Management Conference, Philadelphia, PA, 2007

PSC-CUNY Research Grant ($5,800), 2007

William Stewart Travel Grant ($300), 2007

PSC-CUNY Research Grant ($5,400), 2006

First Place, INFORMS Organization Science Dissertation Proposal Competition, 2004

Graduate Fellow, Columbia Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, 2004-2006

Aesthetic Interfaces: A Theory of Symbolic Differentiation, Paper selected for Best Paper Proceedings, Academy of Management Conference 2004

Finalist for Best Student Paper, Managerial and Organizational Cognition, Division, Academy of Management Conference 2004

Pay Attention to Beauty: The Effects of the Increasing Prevalence of Beautiful Products on the Personal Computer Industry

Runner up for Best Student Submission Award, the 7th Annual Cognition in the

Rough Workshop, Academy of Management Conference, New Orleans, LA. 2004

Full Fellowship, Columbia Business School, 1999-2005

International Full Fellowship, A.B. Freeman School of Business, 1997-1999

Beta Gamma Sigma, National Business Honor Society, 1999-Pres.

Publications

Eisenman, Micki & Frenkel, Michal. Remembering materiality: A Material–Relational Approach to Organizational Memory. Organization Theory

Eisenman, Micki, Paruchuri, Srikanth, & Puranam, Phanish. 2020. The Design of Emergence in Organizations. Journal of Org Design 9: 25.

Eisenman, Micki & Tal Simons. 2020. A Rising Tide Lifts all Boats: The Origins of Institutionalized Aesthetic Innovation. Special Issue on Aesthetics and Style in Strategy Advances in Strategic Management 42: 125-154.

Eisenman, Micki, Frenkel, Michal, & Wasserman, Varda. 2019. The Interpretation of Design-BasedCues: A Processual Approach. In Reay, T., Zilber, T.B., Langley, A. & Tsoukas, H. (Eds.). Institutions and organizations: A process view. Perspectives on process organization studies, Vol. 9. 118-133. Oxford University Press.

Eisenman, Micki & Paruchuri, Srikanth. 2019. Inventor Knowledge Recombination Behaviors in a Pharmaceutical Merger: The Role of Intra-Firm Networks. Long Range Planning, 52: 189-201.

Eisenman, Micki. 2018. A Multimodal Investigation of the Institutionalization of Aesthetic Design as a Dimension of Competition in the PC Industry. Research in the Sociology of Organizations 54A: 183-214.

Eisenman, Micki. 2013. Understanding Aesthetic Design in the Context of Technological Evolution. Academy of Management Review 38(3): 332-351.

Paruchuri, Srikanth & Micki Eisenman. 2012. Microfoundations of Firm R&D Capabilities: A Study of Inventor Networks in a Merger. Journal of Management Studies 49(8): 1509-1535. (Equal Contribution).

Shinnar, Rachel, Melissa Cardon, Micki Eisenman, Virginia Zuiker-Solis, & Myung-Soo Lee. 2009. Immigrant and U.S. Born Mexican Owned Businesses: Motivations and Management. Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship 14(3): 273-295.

Abrahamson, Eric & Micki Eisenman. 2008. Employee-Management Techniques: Transient Fads or Trending Fashions? Administrative Science Quarterly 53(4): 719-744.

Cardon, Melissa, Rachel Shinnar, Micki Eisenman, & Edward G. Rogoff. 2008. Segmenting the Population of Entrepreneurs: A Cluster Analysis Study. Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship 13(3): 293-314.

Shelton, Lois, Sharon Danes, & Micki Eisenman. 2008. Role Demands, Difficulty in Managing Work-Family Conflict, and Minority Entrepreneurs. Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship 13(3); 315- 342.

Abrahamson, Eric & Micki Eisenman. 2001. Why Management Scholars Must Intervene Strategically in the Management Knowledge Market. Human Relations, 54(1): 67-76.

Eisenman, Micki, Frenkel, Michal, & Wasserman, Varda. 2014 Naming what you see: Facilitating shared interpretations of visual design. In C. Reed, R. Thomas, A. Davies, T. Keenoy, A. McDermott, S. Hurlow, I. Sabelis, S. Ybema, C. Oswick, N. Beech, C. Hardy (Eds.), Organizational Discourse: Terra Firma, Terra Nova, Terra Incognita, Proceedings of the 11th Biennial Conference, ISBN 978-1- 900089-11-1

Eisenman, Micki. 2007. Cultivating Taste: Constructing the Importance of Product Aesthetics in Technological Industries. In George T. Solomon (Ed.), Proceedings of the Sixty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (CD), ISSN 1543-8643. Paper selected as the William H. Newman Award Nominee, MOC Division.

Eisenman, Micki. 2004. Aesthetic Interfaces: A Theory of Symbolic Differentiation. In D.H. Nagao (Ed.), Proceedings of the Sixty-third Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (CD), ISSN 1543-8643. Finalist for Best Student Paper, MOC Division.

Eisenman, Micki. 2004. Dynamics of Symbol Imitation in the Personal Computer Industry. In C. Combes, D. Grant, T. Keenoy, C. Oswick, I. Sabelis, M. Veenswijk, and S. Ybema (Eds.), Organizational Discourse: Artefacts, Archetypes and Architexts, Proceedings of the 6th Biennial Conference, ISBN 1 900089 06 8.