Micki Eisenman is a faculty member in both the Organizational Behavior and Strategy and Entrepreneurship Departments at the Hebrew University Business School; she is also Head of the Strategy and Entrepreneurship Department. Additionally, she is Academic Officer for Diversity and Gender Fairness. Professor Eisenman earned her PhD in Management from Columbia University, her MBA from Tulane University, and her BA in English and Communications from Hebrew University.
Professor Eisenman's recent research projects focus on examining organizational memory and how the collective understanding of an organization’s past affects its members in the present. These recent studies examine such questions in the context of professional disc jockeys and therapeutic psychedelics. Her earlier research dealt with the intersection between physical qualities of materials and their social interpretations; what is the role of aesthetics throughout the product life cycle and how organizations communicate by using aesthetic design. In these projects, she asks how the materiality of organizational artifacts impacts organizational processes such as identity construction, innovation, collective memory, or institutional change.
Before joining the business school faculty, Professor 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, she is an editorial board member at the Academy of Management Review, Organization Studies, and Organization Theory.
- Research Summary
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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.
- Publications
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Foroughi, Hamid, Eisenman, Micki, & Parsley, Samantha. 2026. ““Old Skool” Spinning and Syncing: Memory, Technology and Occupational Membership in a DJ Community”. Journal of Management Studies. 64(4): 1807-1836. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.13086
Eisenman, Micki, Foroughi, Hamid, & Foster, William. 2024. Addressing inequality in management education: How to disrupt of the myth of neoliberal meritocracy. Academy of Management Learning and Education 23(3) 1–19. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2023.0015.
Eisenman, Micki & Frenkel, Michal. 2021. Remembering materiality: A Material–Relational Approach to Organizational Memory. Organization Theory 2(3): 1-24.
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.
- Awards & Honors
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Best Paper Award, Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2024
Eisenman, Micki, Hamid Foroughi, & William Foster. 2024. “Addressing Inequality in Management Education: How to Disrupt the Myth of Neoliberal Meritocracy.” Academy of Management Learning & Education, 23(3), 1–19.
Israel Science Foundation Grant — ILS 141,900, 2022–2027
The Halbert Centre for Canadian Studies, The Hebrew University — Funding for the Joint Israeli–Canadian Workshop on Organizational Memory, with Michal Frenkel & Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi (CAD 12,000), supplemented by an additional Hebrew University Grant (USD 5,000), 2022–2023
Best Developmental Reviewer Award, Academy of Management Review, 2020
Israel Science Foundation Grant — ILS 125,000, 2018–2022
Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education, International Network Program — with Eva Boxenbaum, Michal Frenkel, Renate Meyer, Silviya Svejenova, & Tammar Zilber (USD 44,000), 2018–2020
The Halbert Centre for Canadian Studies, The Hebrew University — Funding for the Joint Israeli–Canadian Workshop on Socio-Materiality, with Gili Drori, Michal Frenkel, & Tammar Zilber (CAD 12,000), 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 — USD 4,000, 2011
Marie Curie Reintegration Grant — EUR 100,000, 2010–2014
PSC-CUNY Research Grant — USD 3,200, 2009
Eugene M. Lang Junior Faculty Research Fellowship — USD 6,200, 2008
PSC-CUNY Research Grant — USD 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 — USD 5,800, 2007
William Stewart Travel Grant — USD 300, 2007
PSC-CUNY Research Grant — USD 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, 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–Present