ABSTRACT
Weick (1979) has left his imprint on organization theory by calling for focus on processes rather than on stable entities, by focusing on organizing rather than on organizations. Weick is what one might call a ‘radical mainstream organization theorist’. He has been radical in recognizing early on that organization researchers spend a lot of time describing and comparing entities that fall into the category of ‘organizations’, thus imposing limitations on how far we can go in actually understanding what goes on when people organize. In order to make a case for a differently conceptualized organization theory, Weick has performed a number of action-based empirical studies around which he has built his theoretical framework. To the extent that Weick is a mainstream theorist, he relates his process arguments to – and builds largely on notions from – mainstream organization theory. A likely reason for Weick’s strong position in the field is that he has gently pushed organization theory more in a process direction while at the same time engaging persistently with mainstream writings.
