Karl E. Weick
Karl Edward Weick ( born October 31, 1936 in Warsaw, Indiana ) is a professor of organizational behavior and psychology at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. He is considered one of the most prestigious organization researchers worldwide.
Life
Starting in 1954, Weick studied at Wittenberg University ( Springfield, Ohio), where he finished with a Bachelor in 1958. While still a student marries Weick 1957 Karen Lee Eickhoff. The marriage produced three sons, Kirk, Kyle and Kris. In 1960 he receives his master's degree at Ohio State University and in 1962 he concludes his Ph. D. - studies at the same university successfully.
After studying Weick takes a Research Associate position at Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana (1962-1965 ). There follow a number of visiting professorships and including one year in Utrecht (Netherlands), in Minneapolis, Stanford University, Cornell University ( Ithaca, New York), where he will get a full professorship. Finally, Weick teaches another year at Seattle University and the University of Texas until he finally 1988 Rensis Likert Collegiate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Professor of Psychology takes over at the University of Michigan, where he taught until today.
Summary of Weicks work
Weick is a prolific writer whose bibliography includes several pages. He takes an activity- oriented perspective, a preferred example, manage ( verb) before management ( noun ) and organize ( verb) front organization ( noun ), to anchor the activity of thought.
Weick considers organizations as sinngenerierende systems (English sensemaking systems), which in retrospect constantly generate new self-awareness which they observe their environment and themselves. Members of organizations confirm to the result of this generation themselves and other members and create ( enactment ) as their particular version of truth, accuracy and the corresponding behavior (see corporate culture ). This Weick understands sensemaking much more than mere interpretation ( interpretation ). Sensemaking generates its own social reality.
" People know what they think when they see what they say people know whatthey think whenthey see what they say "
Thus finds meaning-making, instead of always looking back, as incessant weaving together of sense of faith, unspoken assumptions, stories, unspoken rules for decision-making and the resulting options for action. Once put into words, the contents change again, because words are just incomplete container for meaning and the sinner convincing process of the words is steered in a different direction. In addition, the selective sense perception, where different parts of the different reality (or not ) can be carried out even further modified.
Determinations must be re-established again and again in such a floating world. The result is an endless stream of sinner generating reasons, most obviously during meetings, considered as Weick sinngenerierende occasions. Only those who show up for session can follow the complex meaning generated. Weick identifies seven distinctive features for meaning-making in organizations. meaning-making,
Weick describes these operations repeatedly with examples from the real world, be it Scottish producers of wool clothing that poison catastrophe of the Union Carbide plant in Bhophal, India or the fiery death of a man fighting team Gulch, Montana.
Weick leads on work done by James G. March and others, the concept of coupling between organizational elements in the organization theory a. Some elements of organizations are tightly coupled, others loose. Changes of activity in tightly coupled elements alter the activity of the observed elements little slow, or both. Loosely coupled elements interact with each other only slightly. Loose coupling simplifies adapting to change. Organizations with loosely coupled systems are more stable than tightly coupled systems because they influence each other less.
Common to all organizations is the treatment of uncertain, inconsistent, and changing information. Despite the facade of rationality, organizations are in a permanent process of subjectivity, notions and randomness. Weick are ten managers advice on how to better manage in view of the above, .
Accusations of plagiarism
In several articles Weick draws on a story that was originally told by the Hungarian Nobel laureate Albert Szent- Györgyi and had appeared in a poem by Miroslav Holub Czech poet in the literary supplement of the Times. Weick published the poem with some superficial differences, sometimes without giving a source, sometimes with the naming of Szent- Györgyi or Holub but without the explanation that it is, essentially verbatim transcript is a. Plagiarism was Thomas Basbøll and Henrik Graham. discussed in an article. In a reply Weick denied the plagiarism, claiming that " when I began to see the story as an example of cognitive effects, I had the original article with Holub 's poem long lost and I did not even remember where I had read the story. .. I reconstructed the story best efforts. " This does not explain why the reconstruction came so close to Holub's original. In the words of Basbøll and Graham: " The American Historical Association, the existence of these common defense in some cases recognizes that there is plagiarism, and briefly noted that it is" only in the context of another tolerance is understandable to inferior work. "
Works
Two of his books are available in German:
- The process of organizing. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-518-06039-2 (also in paperback, 1995; title of the English original: The Social Psychology of Organizing. )
- ( with Kathleen M. Sutcliffe ): Managing the Unexpected. As companies learn from extreme situations. Klett- Cotta, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-608-94238-6