Making Sense of the Organization - Book Review

Administrative Science Quarterly,  Dec, 2002  by Roderick M. Kramer

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When encountering the body of Weick's work arrayed together in one place, one cannot help but be impressed with the profundity of his mind and the facility of its reach. He seems as comfortable drawing new meaning out of the results of an old laboratory experiment as he is with uncovering the deeper causal significance of a failed firefighting operation. Something else emerges also, however, and that is the sense of optimism that seems to pervade his view of the sensemaking process. The study of organizations may very well be "about fallible people," as he puts it, but it is also about fallible people "who keep going" (p. xi). Near the end of this book, Weick goes further and suggests that perhaps it is even our duty to be optimistic. "To view optimism as a duty rather than as something tied to unsteady expectations of success," he proposes, "is to position oneself in a sufficient variety of places with sufficient confidence that events may be set in motion that provide substance for that hope" (p. 439). "Small wins may amount to little," he observes, "but they are after all wins" (p. 439).

Perhaps the best compact summary of Weick's work is provided by his own observation, "Life in organizations is filled with potential inventions that get ambushed when people slide into old cliches. Pulling oneself out is tense work.... Occasionally there is triumph" (p. 302). This book documents the stunning triumphs of a passionate if unconventional scholar. It can be viewed as a testament to a lifetime of scholarly musing that has earnestly resisted tired methodological conventions and successfully skirted worn cliches.

REFERENCES

Asch, S. E. 1956 "Studies of independence and conformity: A minority of one against a unanimous majority." Psychological Monographs, 70: 1-70.

Latane, B., and J. M. Darley 1968 "Group inhibition of bystander intervention in emergencies." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10: 215-221.

Simon, H. A. 1991 Models of My Life. New York: Basic Books.

Watz, D. J., and S. H. Strogatz 1998 "Collective dynamics of 'small world' networks." Nature, 393: 440-442.

Weick, K. E. 1989 "Theory construction as disciplined imagination." Academy of Management Review, 14: 518-531.

1992 "Agenda setting in organizational behavior: A theory-focused approach." Journal of Management Inquiry, 1: 171-182.

Roderick M. Kramer

Graduate School of Business Stanford University

Stanford, CA 94305

COPYRIGHT 2002 Cornell University, Johnson Graduate School
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group