Professor Elie Geisler
“Learning is a life-long experience. When our students leave Stuart/IIT this is just the beginning of an exciting life of studies and adding knowledge to their set of skills and capabilities. We, at Stuart, provide our students with the necessary tools to successfully function in the knowledge economy, so they can learn and grow. The student’s adventure in life is made possible through the knowledge they acquire at Stuart”.
Notable Vignette
My research interests are at the forefront of my discipline. I work on the yet unsolved problems of what constitutes knowledge and how we can incorporate cognition into organizational processes and structures. The empirical application of this exciting area of research is in healthcare organizations. I involve my students in these research activities, through funded projects and in particular, with participation in publication and writing.
I find it very exciting to have Stuart students get involved with the research activity from start to finish, and to have their names on peer-review publications. I encourage and support questions and doubts, and try to always point to different directions and different viewpoints. Students are involved not only in data analysis but also initially in the design of the study and the design of experiments. This is challenging and exciting to all of us.
What excites me about Stuart
As a relatively small business school, Stuart offers professors and students the opportunity to work together and to get to know each other. I make it a point to teach the introductory course in my area of expertise, so that when students take the first course, they take it with me. I particularly enjoy the fact that at Stuart the faculty know each other and we know all our students. Unlike large universities where students and faculty get lost in the sheer size, at Stuart we can offer the highest quality business education to a cadre of exceptional students. I also enjoy at Stuart the camaraderie among the faculty and the sense of friendship and cooperation among the various colleges of the IIT family.
My teaching/professional interests
I am particularly keen on integrating my research and consulting experience into the classroom. With almost three decades of experience I bring the practical world to the course, enmeshed with the theory. I routinely challenge conventional wisdom in light of current scholarship and encourage my students to do the same. I encourage and delight in the diversity of opinions as well as diversity of students and their different perspectives. I therefore encourage work in teams of students of different backgrounds. My courses are a laboratory of real-life cases together with the latest in theoretical knowledge. I emphasize analysis over memorization and offer students a vast reading list with an interdisciplinary flavor. I also encourage writing essays and papers so that students learn the skill of transferring ideas into paper, and of articulating and communicating complex concepts with few words, yet with erudition and precision.
My teaching/research interests
I teach courses in organization behavior, organization design and business policy. My research interests are the management and organization of technology, innovation, and knowledge in large organizations. I have consulted for dozens of large companies and most of the departments of the federal government. I am among the pioneers in the systematic research into the management of medical technology. In the past few years I have concentrated on managerial cognition and the factors involved in the use of tacit knowledge in solving organizational problems.
