Karl E. Weick

Weick introduced the term mindfulness into the organizational and safety literatures in the article Organizing for high reliability: Processes of collective mindfulness (1999). Weick develops the term “mindfulness” from Langer's (1989) work, who uses it to describe individual cognition. Weick's innovation was transferring this concept into the organizational literature as “collective mindfulness.” The effective adoption of collective mindfulness characteristics by an organization appears to cultivate safer cultures that exhibit improved system outcomes. The term high reliability organization (HRO) is an emergent property described by Weick (and Karlene Roberts at UC-Berkeley). Highly mindful organizations characteristically exhibit: a) Preoccupation with failure, b) Reluctance to simplify c) Sensitivity to operations, d) Commitment to Resilience, and e) Deference to Expertise.

In 1984 until 1988, Weick was the Harkins and Co. Centennial Chair in Business Administration at University of Texas at Austin. Finally, he moved to the University of Michigan in 1988, where he remains as the Rensis Likert Distinguished University Professor of Organizational Behavior and Psychology.

In several published articles, Weick related a story that originally appeared in a poem by Miroslav Holub, “Brief thoughts on maps”, in which soldiers lost in the Alps find their way with an old map, revealed at the end to be a map of the Pyrénées. The original poem was published in the Times Literary Supplement, February 4, 1977. Weick republished the poem with minor differences, sometimes without quotation or attribution. The plagiarism was detailed in an article by Thomas Basbøll and Henrik Graham.

Weick's major contribution to the topic of loose coupling in an organizational context comes from his 1976 paper on "Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems" (published in the Administrative Science Quarterly), revisited in his review of subsequent uses of the concept, with JD Orton, in 1990's Loosely Coupled Systems: A Reconceptualization.

Weick notes that while at Purdue, he was fortunate to develop close ties with faculty in the Krannert School of Management. It was William Starbuck that suggested Weick write a chapter about laboratory experiments and organizations for the first edition of James G. March's Handbook of Organizations, published in 1965. This ultimately established Weick's "identity" as an organizational psychologist.

Also in 1965, Weick moved to the University of Minnesota as an associate professor of psychology, and was promoted to full professor in 1968. In 1972, he left Minnesota to be a professor of psychology and organizational behavior in the business school at Cornell University, and in 1977 was given the title of Nicholas H. Noyes Professor of Organizational Behavior and Professor of Psychology. From 1977 to 1985, he was the editor of the Administrative Science Quarterly.

From 1962 to 1965, Weick was an assistant professor of psychology at Purdue University in Lafayette, IN. Six months after arriving at Purdue, he received a letter from John C. Flanagan congratulating him on being the 1961-62 Winner of the Best Dissertation of the Year Award in Creative Talent Awards Program sponsored by the American Institutes for Research. Weick submitted an article based on this research to The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, but it was rejected by the editor, Dan Katz. In an unlikely turn of events one of the referees, Arthur R. (Bob) Cohen, wrote the editor indicating that he would like to change his appraisal of the article. This prompted Katz to reconsider the significance of the article. Finally in 1964, Weick's first article to come out of his dissertation was published.

Karl Edward Weick (born October 31, 1936) is an American organizational theorist who introduced the concepts of "loose coupling", "mindfulness", and "sensemaking" into organizational studies. He is the Rensis Likert Distinguished University Professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Weick was born on October 31, 1936 in Warsaw, Indiana. He earned his bachelor's degree at Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio in 1958. He went on to The Ohio State University earning his M.A. under the direction of Harold B. Pepinsky in 1960 and his Ph.D. under the direction of Douglas P. Crowne and Milton J. Rosenberg in 1962. Although he tried several degree programs within the psychology department, the department finally built a degree program specifically for Weick and fellow student Genie Plog called "organizational psychology".