University Park, IL,
23
May
2017
|
19:35 PM
America/Chicago

Gökçe Sargut

Dr.Gökçe Sargut, Associate Professor of Management at Governors State University, has defied the notoriously long process of publishing a research paper. Dr. Sargut’s research in organization theory has been prolific: he has produced more than a dozen scholarly papers ranging in topics from school boards’ social capital to supply chain politics to cookie-cutter style movie production.

“It’s almost my social duty to be at a high level and produce more,” said Dr. Sargut, attributing the volume of his publications to his experiences at research universities like Columbia University in New York, where he earned both his Ph.D. and master’s degree in Management of Organization, and the University of Illinois, where he earned his MBA.

Dr. Sargut’s arduous work has been fruitful: in 2016, he was recognized by GSU’s Faculty Excellence Award for his teaching, research, and service to the university. His work has also fetched the Producer of the Year Award from the College of Business. The Harvard Business Review and other prestigious publications have promoted the organization theorist’s findings, which have won praise from his peers and leadership at GSU.

For all his writings and awards, Dr. Sargut wants to do even more, revealing an insatiable appetite for research in the area of competitive dynamics and structural change in creative industries. He wants to know: How do organizational fields interact with culture? 

Recognized throughout the industry, Dr. Sargut’s academic service and published works have been instrumental to GSU’s College of Business team in securing the gold standard Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation.

GSU Newsroom: Why is the AACSB recognition important?

Sargut: The AACSB is one of the most rigorous accrediting bodies in the world. Only five percent of schools get this logo, and it brings out our name and helps attract higher caliber of faculty and more marketable graduates. It’s important because it means we have created a number of processes based on established best practices, and it ensures we are following our mission and keeping up to date in our research and thinking. That logo means our processes and structures are the best.

GSU Newsroom: What paper are you proudest of?

Sargut: One of the papers I’m proudest of is All You Need Is Trust? An Examination of Inter-organizational Supply Chain Projects (published in Production and Operations Management in 2015). I wrote it with two other colleagues, and it took four years and a number of revisions to complete. As this is a top-ranked journal, it was a long and difficult process. We looked at supply chain relationshipstwo companies working together. Along the way, the paper went through many iterations, and we had to modify our model several times. By the time we finished, the paper was nothing like what we started. That’s what I really appreciated about the process—the constant learning and getting better at the craft of research.

GSU Newsroom: What inspired you to study organizations?

Sargut: General curiosity. I’m interested in so many things all at once. Having been raised by parents who are educators, I was always very interested in why people act the way they do in various environments and under different circumstances. The study of organizations emerged as the ideal research platform for me, since organizations are the focal point in pretty much any human endeavor. It has a very rich and diverse research tradition, since it borrows and builds on research from all areas of the social sciences.

GSU Newsroom: What attracted you to Governors State University?

Sargut: Governors State was doing an interesting experiment in terms of how American higher education goes. I’d never seen anything like this before. The school was established in the late 1960s as the original “University without Walls.” It had no walls and people could walk in and out of class. They didn’t have a traditional grading system. Students had to produce a portfolio of work. It was an interesting system that no other university in the country had at the time. Also, when I moved my family here in 2010, I found the people to be amazingly friendly. In the business school, people were kind and reasonable. If anyone made a mistake, they simply took ownership and went on with their lives. It was very different from the politically charged environment I had experienced for a long time in New York City. Here, I like the warmth and camaraderie.