Karl E. Weick is the Rensis Likert Collegiate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Psychology, and Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan Business School.  Weick received his doctorate in Social and Organizational Psychology from Ohio State University.  In 1996, Weick's book The Social Psychology of Organizing, first published in 1969 and revised in 1979, was designated one of the nine best business books ever written by Inc Magazine. 

In 1995, Weick expanded the organizing formulation in a book titled Sensemaking in Organizations.  Weick's research interests include collective sensemaking under pressure, medical errors, handoffs in extreme events, high reliability performance, improvisation, and continuous change.  Weick's reanalysis of the Dude wildland fire of 1990 in which six firefighters perished focuses on mechanisms for intellectual renewal used by organizational scholars, lessons learned about leadership, and a generalization of findings from research on high reliability organizations to the larger issue of high performing organizations.