Organization Studies

http://oss.sagepub.com/ How Can We Know What We Think Until We See What We Said?: A Citation and Citation Context Analysis of Karl Weick's The Social Psychology of Organizing
Marc H. Anderson Organization Studies 2006 27: 1675 DOI: 10.1177/0170840606068346 The online version of this article can be found at: http://oss.sagepub.com/content/27/11/1675

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How Can We Know What We Think Until We See What We Said?: A Citation and Citation Context Analysis of Karl Weicks The Social Psychology of Organizing
Marc H. Anderson

Abstract
Marc H. Anderson University of Waikato, New Zealand

A substantial portion of Karl Weicks influence on organization studies is based upon his classic book The Social Psychology of Organizing (abbreviated as Organizing). A citation analysis shows the magnitude of this influence compared to five other organization studies classics, and reveals that Organizing continues to be highly cited. A citation context analysis (i.e. content analysis) of all citations to Weick (1979) in three top organization studies journals (Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Organization Studies) shows that 12 concepts account for 67.6% of citations to Organizing, but that the book is cited for a remarkable diversity of additional content as well. Furthermore, a consideration of differences between the concepts cited in the US journals versus Organization Studies reveals several regional differences. Finally, very few citations are critical of Organizing or involve empirical tests. These results hold a variety of implications for future research. Keywords: Karl Weick, social psychology of organizing, citation context analysis, regional differences, sensemaking

Organization Studies 27(11): 16751692 ISSN 01708406 Copyright 2006 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA & New Delhi) www.egosnet.org/os

Karl Weick often asks a question hes labeled the sensemaking recipe: How can I know what I think until I see what I say? (e.g. 1977: 279; 1979: 5, 133, 155, 165, 175, 185, 207; 1985: 52; 1988: 307; 1989b: 247; 1995: 12, 18, 61, 135; 2001: 95). This recipe highlights how sensemaking is a retrospective process in which individuals first act and then reflect on their actions to interpret what they mean. Making sense of the impact of a scholarly contribution follows a similar process. While people assume they can recognize great works when they are first published, Simonton (1997) has made a strong argument that the importance of a work can only be judged retrospectively (see Lee, Vicente, Cassano, and Shearer 2003 for empirical support). Only by seeing how subsequent scholars use a given work can its contribution to a scientific field be assessed. In other words: How can we know what we think until we see what we said? The purpose of this article is to make sense of the contribution of Karl Weicks (1969, 1979) classic book The Social Psychology of Organizing (hereafter abbreviated as Organizing) by seeing what content from the book is cited by subsequent work. Weick has made numerous major contributions to organization studies on such topics as loose coupling (Weick 1976; Orton and Weick 1990),
DOI: 10.1177/0170840606068346
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organizations as interpretive systems (Daft and Weick 1984), theory construction as disciplined imagination (Weick 1989a), collective mind as heedful interrelating (Weick and Roberts 1993), improvisation (Weick 1998), and organizing for high reliability (Weick 1987; Weick et al. 1999). But his most influential work is undeniably Organizing. Ramos-Rodriguez and Ruiz-Navarro (2004) found that Organizing was the 24th most cited work in strategic management (cited in 61 of 870 articles in Strategic Management Journal between 1980 and 2000). Miner (2003) surveyed 95 scholars who gave Weicks work on the social psychology of organizing and sensemaking a mean importance rating of 5.51 out of 7 a higher mean importance rating than that given to all but six of the 73 dominant theories of organizational behavior. Yet while prior research has established the significance of Weicks masterpiece, it hasnt illuminated the specific content from Organizing that authors have cited. This article gives a richer picture of both the extent and nature of the influence of this classic through a citation and citation context analysis that involves identifying and coding all passages of the text in citing articles containing the specific references to Organizing. In addition to celebrating Weicks enormous impact, the research presented here also considers whether there are differences between citations to Organizing among US versus European scholars and examines the extent to which subsequent work has critically engaged or empirically tested material in Organizing.

The Role of Citations in the Social Construction of Organization Studies Citations play an important role in the social construction of organization studies. This social construction begins as researchers initiate investigations with preexisting worldviews that influence the theoretical lenses they adopt and what they believe constitutes relevant data (Astley 1985; Burrell and Morgan 1979). Because theoretical constructs unavoidably intervene between external reality and our understanding of it, language itself becomes the essential subject matter of scientific deliberation. Language is not simply a vehicle for transmitting information. Rather, it is the very embodiment of truth (Astley 1985: 499). Thus, authors must use extensive rhetorical strategies to argue that their work addresses an undesirable gap in the existing literature (Locke and GoldenBiddle 1997). Social construction processes continue as editors and reviewers shape a work after it is submitted for publication. Actual publication of a work sets in motion additional social construction processes, as subsequent authors read and then cite it. While citations clearly function as one of the principal reward systems in science (Merton 1973; Small 2004), their importance is actually much more significant. Gilbert (1976) argued that scientific papers are really knowledge claims staked out by scientists who then must await the certification of their claims by the scientific community (Small 1982: 305). This certification process involves citations, which not only decide the acceptability of the knowledge claim contained in the paper, but also, to an extent, define what that claim is, by mentioning or noting that aspect

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of the paper which the citing author wishes to recognize and legitimize (Small 1982: 305). Complex works such as Organizing contain a large number of knowledge claims, any of which has the potential to influence future studies. The realized contribution of a work is only determined as subsequent authors actually use that work, which is reflected in citations made to it (Small 1978): that is, the knowledge claims that citing authors write about help to actively construct the meaning of that work (Small 1978: 328). How can I know why a work is important until I see why I cite it? The recognized importance of citations to the institution of science has led to the development of citation analysis as a methodological approach. Most citation analyses involve counting the number of citations to particular works or journals for various purposes (Liu 1993), including: (1) examining the scholarly productivity of individuals or departments, (2) providing a measure of quality for the purpose of ranking journals (e.g. Tahai and Meyer 1999), (3) identifying the most frequently cited articles in a field (e.g. Engwall 1998; RamosRodriguez and Ruiz-Navarro 2004), and (4) using co-citation analysis (the frequency that two documents are cited together) to draw maps of the intellectual structure of a field (e.g. Ramos-Rodriguez and Ruiz-Navarro 2004; Usdiken and Pasadeos 1995). However, while citation counts can show the overall impact of a work, they cannot establish the specific contribution of that work. A more sophisticated form of citation analysis called citation context analysis (Small 1982) involves content-analyzing citations to determine their function or meaning. Small (1982: 288) defines a citation context as that particular passage or statement within the citing document containing the references. Although memory limitations make it impossible to truly determine why authors have cited a particular article, by analyzing the citation context, it is usually possible to work out what other scholars believe an article says (Allen 1997: 942). Several citation context studies have examined the specific content of cited works that is addressed by authors citing those works. Garfield (1980) analyzed the citation contexts of 35 social science and 49 natural science articles that cited work by sociologist Robert K. Merton, and found that most citations were to Mertons conceptual work (versus his empirical work), and that these articles cited 26 distinct concepts. Mizruchi and Fein (1999) examined 160 articles in six journals that cited DiMaggio and Powells (1983) classic article on institutional isomorphism, and then more closely examined the 26 articles that operationalized and empirically tested parts of that work. Lounsbury and Carberry (2005) classified 238 articles published in Administrative Science Quarterly from 1956 to 2002 that cited Max Webers work into three organizational research streams, and suggested that Webers relevance to organization studies appears to be waning.

Research Questions In this article, I examine the contribution of Organizing to the field of organization studies using both a citation analysis and a citation context analysis. The

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latter involves content-analyzing the citation contexts in articles that have cited Organizing to determine what concepts citing authors have discussed. This more clearly establishes the specific nature of Organizings contribution than is possible by looking exclusively at citation counts. Like much of the literature on citation and citation context analysis, this study is exploratory rather than concerned with explicit hypothesis testing. Its purpose is to address the following four research questions: 1: What is the extent of the influence of Organizing and how does it compare to other classic organization studies books? I examine this question by looking at the number of citations made to Organizing and five other classics: Katz and Kahn (1966), Lawrence and Lorsch (1967), March and Simon (1958), Pfeffer and Salancik (1978), and Thompson (1967). These comparison classics were arbitrarily chosen, but they usually appear on lists of the most influential books in organization studies (e.g. Usdiken and Pasadeos 1995). Although there are limitations to citations counts (Cole 1975: 186; MacRoberts and MacRoberts 1996; Peritz 1992), studies have shown that the frequency with which a scientific work is cited is a valid indicator of its influence and importance (Liu 1993). 2: What content from Organizing have subsequent authors used? Answering this question will give a better understanding of the realized contribution of Weicks book. Small (1978: 338) claims that Perhaps the most important result of the social selection of knowledge through citation is the narrowing of meaning which occurs condensing or capsulizing a complex original text into a few standard statements To what extent has the rich diversity of ideas in Organizing been narrowed to a few standard concepts? An explicit examination of the citation contexts may also reveal several concepts in Organizing that have had little impact, and that might warrant another look by organization scholars. While prior research has reflected on a few of the ideas in Organizing that have significantly influenced the organizational communication literature (Bantz 1989), my research more systematically examines its influence on the mainstream organization studies literature. 3: Are there differences between the citation frequency and the specific content that Organizing is cited for between US and Europe? Prior research has suggested that there are important differences between organization research as conducted in the US and Europe (Engwall 1998; Hofstede 1996; Koza and Thoenig 1995; Usdiken and Pasadeos 1995). While Usdiken and Pasadeos (1995) reported that Weick was one of the most influential authors cited by European scholars, this status was earned with a mere five citations to Weick (1979), and their study only considered a three-year time period and two journals (Administrative Science Quarterly and Organization Studies). My research investigates this question using a finer-grained methodology that holds promise for future scholars investigating regional differences in organization studies.

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4: To what extent have subsequent authors critically challenged or empirically tested the material in Organizing? Scientific progress rests on a continuous process of critically evaluating and testing theoretical claims. Yet several authors have reported that articles generally include very few negational references, i.e. references that are directly critical of a work (Moravcsik and Murugesan 1975; MacRoberts and MacRoberts 1984; Case and Higgins 2000: 640). To what extent have authors citing Organizing been critical of that work, and how frequently do they refer to empirical tests of its concepts? If the most important knowledge claims made in Organizing have not been critically examined or empirically investigated, then this might suggest the need for future work.

Methods I collected yearly citation counts to Organizing and the other classics from the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and Web of Science databases. These comprehensive databases are frequently used in citation studies (e.g. Aldrich 1988; Engwall 1998; Podsakoff et al. 2005; Ramos-Rodriguez and RuizNavarro 2004). I collected data from the online version of the Web of Science for 19932005, the CD-Rom version of the SSCI for 198892, and the hardcopy version of the SSCI for 196987. I also collected yearly citation counts to Organizing in 12 journals that are widely recognized as being the top outlets for research on organizations: Academy of Management Journal (AMJ), Academy of Management Review (AMR), Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ), Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP), Journal of Management (JOM), Journal of Management Studies (JMS), Journal of Organizational Behavior (JOB), Management Science (MGMT SCI), Organization Science (ORG SCI), Organization Studies (OS), Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (OBHDP), and Strategic Management Journal (SMJ). My citation context analysis began with a comprehensive search of citations to Organizing in three of the journals where it has been cited most frequently: AMR, ASQ, and OS. These journals are widely recognized as being the premier journals dealing with organization studies (e.g. Tahai and Meyer 1999). I began by determining the first issue of each journal that contains an article that cites Weick (1979) (which is volume 24, issue 4 (1979) of ASQ, volume 5, issue 4 (1980) of AMR, and volume 3, issue 2 (1982) of OS). Starting with the first issue containing a citation to Weick (1979), I manually searched the reference list of every article in these three journals to identify the complete set of articles that have cited Organizing (either 1969 or 1979). In total, I looked at 2452 articles (1018 in AMR, 638 in ASQ, and 796 in OS). Of these, 328 articles cited one or both editions of Organizing. Specifically, 260 articles (127 in AMR, 62 in ASQ, and 71 in OS) referenced Weick (1979) and 75 articles (28 in AMR, 24 in ASQ, and 23 in OS) referenced Weick (1969) (during the time period under investigation). Seven of the articles in these totals referenced

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both editions of Organizing together. A total of 427 different people authored these articles. The most frequent authors who cite Organizing are: Weick himself (6 articles), Dennis Gioia (6 articles), Gregory Dess (6 articles), Andrew Van de Ven (5 articles), and Haridimos Tsoukas (5 articles). For each of these 328 articles that included Organizing in their references, I manually searched through the text to identify every independent citation context, and then copied this text into a database. Sometimes these were a single sentence, sometimes many sentences or even a paragraph or more (whatever was needed to capture the understanding of the citation context; Small 1982). When two sentences that were either directly adjacent to one another or separated by a single sentence both cited Organizing, these were treated as a single citation context (there were 22 such occurrences for Weick 1979 and 1 for Weick 1969). A majority of the articles listing Organizing in their references contained only a single citation context (60% of articles citing the 1979 edition and 75% of articles citing the 1969 edition). The remainder included between 2 and 11 citation contexts. In total I collected 578 independent citation contexts (482 to Weick 1979 and 106 to Weick 1969 10 of these were citations to both editions of Organizing). I then carefully and closely reread both the 1969 and 1979 editions of Organizing and afterward categorized all 578 of the cited passages based on the specific content from Organizing they referred to. To examine differences between the use of Organizing by US versus European scholars, I examined differences between citations contexts from ASQ and AMR versus OS. Finally, in addition to coding the content of each citation context, I identified those that were critical of content from Organizing or mentioned an empirical test of its ideas.

Results Previous citation studies have found various citation errors (e.g. Oppenheim and Renn 1978; Harzing 2002), and my analysis revealed several errors in the citations to Organizing. Four articles mis-cited the date, with two citing 1968 (treated as citing 1969), one citing 1970, and one citing 1972 (I arbitrarily decided to treat these latter two as citing 1979 for ease of reporting). One article mis-cited the title of Weick (1969) as the sociology of organizing. Three articles cited Organizing in the references section only, and not in text itself (these are not included in the totals). One article listed Weick (1979) in the references, but cited Weick (1969) in the text. One article misspelled Weicks name in the references as Karl F. Figure 1 presents the total number of citations per year to Organizing (both editions) and five other organization studies classics for the period of 19772005. Overall, Organizing has been cited 2510 times. Four of the five comparison classics have been cited more: Thompson (1967) with 3980 citations, March and Simon (1958) with 3659 citations, Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) with 2909 citations, and Katz and Kahn (1966) with 2696 citations. Organizing has been cited more than Lawrence and Lorsch (1967) with 2227 citations. Note that all newer editions of these works are included in these citation counts. Figure 1 also contains the 940 citations to Weick (1995).

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Anderson: How Can We Know What We Think Until We See What We Said? Figure 1. Citations Per Year to Selected Organization Studies Classics 180 160 140 120 # of Citations 100 80 60 40 20 0 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003

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Year Thompson (1967) March & Simon (1958) Pfeffer & Salancik (1978) Katz & Kahn (1966) Weick (1969,1979) Lawrence & Lorsch (1967) Weick (1995)

Comparing the citation counts for Organizing to other classics helps establish its relative influence on the field of organization studies, but fails to convey how spectacularly influential Organizing has been. Instead, compare it with the average article in two top journals. Podsakoff et al. (2005: 476) report that over the entire time period of 198199, the average article published in ASQ was cited 40 times and the average article published in AMR was cited 29 times (these journals had the highest average citation rates). The fact that Organizing has been cited an average of 88.7 times per year during this period of 198199, and 115 times per year over the last 10 years (19962005), more adequately conveys its stunning impact. Figure 2 presents the number of citations to Organizing (both editions) in the five organization studies journals where it is cited most often (AMR, JMS, ORG SCI, OS, and ASQ) for the period 19792004. The total number of citations to Organizing in each of these journals is: AMR (150 citations), JMS (106 citations), ORG SCI (91 citations), OS (88 citations), and ASQ (85 citations). This reveals that Organizing is cited frequently not only in the top American journals, but also in the two top European journals, showing its global influence on

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2005

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Figure 2. Citations to Organizing Per Year in Five Top Journals

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18 16 14 12 # of Citations 10 8 6 4 2 0 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005

Year

AMR JMS

Org Sci Org Stud ASQ

organization studies. Organizing has been cited less frequently in seven other top journals: SMJ (75 citations), AMJ (71 citations), JOM (51 citations), MGMT SCI (29 citations), JOB (20 citations), OBHDP (14 citations), and JAP (10 citations). Note that Weick was editor of ASQ during 197785, the period in which Organizing was most frequently cited in that journal. The citation data presented so far illustrate the enormous influence of Organizing, but they dont tell what specific content others cite it for. Categorizing the 578 citation contexts yielded a total of 101 distinct concepts or ideas. Table 1 reports the 12 concepts or areas that my citation context analysis reveals as being the most frequently cited, along with the number of times each was cited and an example citation. Each of these concepts was cited at least 15 times and together these 12 concepts represent 67.6% of the citations to Organizing. Ideas related to enactment were by far the most commonly cited content from Organizing, and they account for 16.6% of the citation contexts. Equivocality (and the suggestion that the purpose of organizing is to reduce it) is the 2nd most cited idea (6.6% of citation contexts). The next 10 most frequently cited categories (and the percentage of citation contexts for each) are: the notion that sensemaking is a retrospective process in which actions and choices precede goals (5.5%), the distinction between the process of organizing (verb) versus organization (noun) (5.5%), the idea that organizations consist of

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Table 1. The 12 Most Frequently Cited Concepts from Organizing Concept Enactment Equivocality Action precedes goals # of citations to concept 96 38 32 Example citation Weick (1979) defined the concept of enactment as the process by which individuals in organizations act and, in doing so, create the conditions that become the constraints and opportunities they face. (Perlow 1999: 58) Equivocality means ambiguity due to multiple, and many times conflicting, interpretations of the same information (Daft and Macintosh 1981; Daft and Weick 1984; Weick 1979). (Nayyar and Kazanjian 1993: 747) Third, Weick (1979) notes that goals in organizations frequently are inventions to suit activity already performed they are or become the organizations means of restructuring a rationale for past activity. (Gaertner and Ramnarayan 1983: 99) We assume the process to be a continuing one more organizing than organization (Weick 1979). (Robichaud et al. 2004: 624) Weick (1969, 1979) refers to the double-interact as interlocked behavior and defines this pattern length as the minimal requirement for organizing. (Watson 1982: 395) As Weick (1979) has noted, it is seldom possible in scientific endeavors to achieve accuracy, generality, and simplicity simultaneously in a single theory. (Detert et al. 2000: 852) According to this view, metaphors encourage different ways of thinking, which enable social scientists and laypeople alike to focus upon, explain, and influence different aspects of complex organizational phenomena (Morgan 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988a,b, 1989; Weick 1979). (Tsoukas 1991: 566) The theme of sense making (Gioia and Chittipeddi 1991; Weick 1979) forms a part of the natural process of organizational action. Its main ideas are that managers interpret events and that their intuitive beliefs influence decisions. (Bowman and Hurry 1993: 773) In other instances, changes in efficacy and performance build upon each other, resulting in a deviation-amplifying loop (Masuch 1985; Weick 1979). (Lindsley et al. 1995: 650) Over time, the accumulation of retrospective accounts may foster the assignment of meaning to present experiences and facilitate the creation of new cognitive maps (Weick 1979). (Miller and Jablin 1991: 112) Or, in a somewhat similar vein, arguing from the standpoint of the social construction of reality (e.g. Berger and Luckmann 1967; Silverman 1970; Weick 1979), the important research issue may be understanding the meanings that individuals attach to actions and events in their own settings. (Osigweh 1989: 580) Weick (1979: 111) considers loose coupling to exist when two systems have few variables in common or the common variables are weak in comparison to other variables that influence the system. (Kmetz 1984: 278)

Organizing (verb) vs. organization (noun); model of organizing Double-interact/interlocked behavior Tradeoffs between general, simple, accurate theory Metaphor

32 29 28 28

Sensemaking

26

Deviation loops Causal/cognitive maps Social construction of reality

25 23 19

Loose coupling

15

repeating interlocked behaviors and that the double interact is the minimal process length for organizing (5.0%), the idea that theorizing involves necessary tradeoffs between generalizability, accuracy, and simplicity (4.8%), issues regarding metaphors (4.8%), references to the sensemaking perspective (4.5%), deviation-amplifying and deviation-counteracting loops (4.3%), cognitive maps, cause maps, schemas, and related concepts (4.0%), the social construction of reality (3.3%), and loose coupling (2.6%). Other reasons authors frequently cite Organizing include: as an example of the strategic choice perspective or a

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socio-evolutionary perspective, discussing the enactment-selection-retention model, as an example of the cognitive/information processing/interpretivist tradition, organizational memory, and requisite variety. A wide variety of concepts from Organizing have not had much impact on organization studies as evidenced by citations. Among the more interesting concepts for which Organizing has been cited only a handful of times are (with page numbers in Weick 1979): (1) the notion of avoided tests (pp. 149152), (2) future perfect thinking (pp. 197200), (3) the benefits of acting randomly (pp. 262263), (4) the idea of partial inclusion (pp. 9597, 251252), (5) the definition of creativity as old things in new combinations and new things in old combinations (p. 252), and (6) the prescription to complicate yourself (p. 261). One concept that wasnt cited a single time is Weicks discussion of Crovitzs (1970) relational algorithm (pp. 252260). Although Organizing is cited extensively in both the top North American and European organization studies journals (as noted above), the data reveal important differences in terms of the content that Organizing is cited for across these geographic regions. Table 2 shows the number of citations to the 12 most frequently cited concepts from Organizing, separated into those in the US-based journals (AMR and ASQ) and those in the European journal (OS). Many of the content categories for which Organizing is cited most widely in AMR and ASQ are cited much less frequently in OS. Organizing is rarely cited in OS for the ideas of (1) necessary theoretical tradeoffs between generalizability, accuracy, and simplicity, (2) deviation-amplifying and deviation-counteracting loops, (3) the importance of metaphors, and (4) social construction. In contrast, OS authors cite Organizing much more frequently for the distinction between organizing vs. organization. Many of the less frequently cited content categories were cited only in either the North American journals (n = 48) or OS (n = 19), but no meaningful patterns were evident across them. In addition to coding the content of each citation context, I examined whether each was either refutational (i.e. critical of concepts Organizing) or referred to empirical results that related to Weicks ideas. Even using a fairly generous standard for qualifying a citation context as refutation or empirical yielded only a small number of such contexts 27 were refutational (4.7% of the total) while 18 mentioned relevant empirical results (3.1% of the total) (six citation contexts were common to both classifications). Interestingly, 14 of the 27 refutational citation contexts occurred in OS (52%), which further supports the thesis of regional differences. Among the challenges to Organizing mentioned in the refutational citation contexts were claims that: (1) Weick retreats into the familiar language of positivistic science (Chia 1997: 691), (2) the case-cluster method can achieve generalizability, accuracy, and simplicity within a single study (McClintock et al. 1979: 626), (3) Weick mistakenly believes that science must function on the basis of one trope or another (Pinder and Bourgeois 1982: 647), and (4) Weicks definition of organizations treats social life solely as a matter of interrelated people and doesnt adequately acknowledge that nonhumans are active components (Schatzki 2005: 478). Among the joint refutation/empirical citation contexts were that (1) the first stage in the enactment process consists of a

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Table 2. Differences in Number of Citations to the 12 Most Frequently Cited Concepts from Organizing between US-Based Journals (AMR and ASQ) and European Journal (Organization Studies) Total # of citations to concept in AMR and ASQ (% of total) 68 (15.7%) 33 (7.6%) 21 (4.8%) 16 (3.7%) 19 (4.4%) 26 (6.0%) 26 (6.0%) 22 (5.1%) 24 (5.5%) 18 (4.1%) 17 (3.9%) 10 (2.3%) 434 Total # of citations to concept in OS (% of total) 28 (19.4%) 5 (3.5%) 11 (7.6%) 16 (11.1%) 10 (6.9%) 2 (1.4%) 2 (1.4%) 4 (2.8%) 1 (0.7%) 5 (3.5%) 2 (1.4%) 5 (3.5%) 144

Concept Enactment Equivocality Action precedes goals Organizing (verb) vs. organization (noun); model of organizing Double-interact/interlocked behavior Tradeoffs between generalizable, simple, and accurate theory Metaphor Sensemaking Deviation loops Causal/cognitive maps Social construction of reality Loose coupling

Total citation contexts

deliberate effort to shape the environment (Abolafia and Kilduff 1988: 180), (2) decision making during the Cuban Missile Crisis was far more directed and intentional that Weicks metaphor of organization action would lead us to expect (Anderson 1983: 217), (3) observations of bricolage found that actors consciously and consistently tested conventional limitations (as opposed to avoiding tests) (Baker and Nelson 2005: 335), and (4) sensemaking within the project was not exclusively a retrospective process but also encompassed significant aspects of prospective thinking (Engwall and Westling 2004: 1571). Supportive empirical tests mentioned in the citation contexts included that (1) information tended to match the degree of equivocality in the process to which the information applies (Daft and Macintosh 1981: 218), (2) findings corroborate Weicks (1979) notion that groups develop common means to achieve divergent ends (Donnellon et al. 1986: 52), and (3) studies have stressed that organizations sequentially go through periods of exploitation and exploration (rather than simultaneously doing both) (Holmqvist 2003: 100). Discussion The purpose of this study was to examine the extent and nature of the influence of Karl Weicks masterpiece Organizing using citation and citation context

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analysis. The citation counts presented here illustrate the truly stunning impact of Organizing. Although not cited as frequently as several classics including March and Simon (1958) and Thompson (1967), it has been cited more frequently than the highly influential work by Lawrence and Lorsch (1967). Furthermore, this influence extends well beyond mainstream organization studies, as only 33.7% (n = 791) of the total citations to Organizing over the period of 19792004 occur in 12 of the fields most prestigious journals. The citation counts also show no decrease in citations to Organizing over time, and, interestingly, that Weicks (1995) more recent book Sensemaking in Organizations has not cannibalized citations to Organizing. Going beyond citation counts to examine the content that Organizing is cited for revealed that 12 categories cover 67.6% of the citations to Organizing, though authors have cited a large diversity of additional content from the book. This shows that the uniformity of usage (Small 1978: 329) the extent to which all citations to a work are for the same reason is fairly low. Perhaps Organizing is such an enduring classic because its requisite variety has so far proven sufficient to match that of much of the organizational landscape as studied by academics. As new topics have emerged and gained attention in organization studies, researchers and theorists have continued to find the concepts and arguments in Organizing to be relevant and meaningful. I also highlighted several concepts in Organizing that have been cited surprisingly few times, and these concepts may well represent missed opportunities worth revisiting by organizational scholars. My analysis of differences between citations to Organizing in North American versus European journals makes two contributions. First, while Organizing has been highly cited in journals from both regions, there appear to be substantial differences in terms of the specific content it has been cited for. The finding that OS authors cite the difference between organizing versus organization much more frequently than do the American journal authors supports the contention that European scholars are more concerned about process and interpretive perspectives than their North American counterparts (Koza and Thoenig 1995). These findings bolster the claim that there are differences between organization studies as conducted in North America versus Europe. A second contribution is the more fine-grained approach I used for addressing the question of regional differences. Prior work has counted the number of citations to the most highly cited authors of articles in top US and European journals (Usdiken and Pasadeos 1995) or counted the number of non-US authors of the articles published in top journals (Engwall 1998). While the results of these studies are suggestive, their methods are somewhat coarse. Given the enormous corpus of work by titans such as Weick, Pfeffer, and March, there could be vast differences in terms of the specific works cited. Furthermore, as this study shows, even if a particular work has been cited with a similar frequency across regions, the specific content for which it is cited may differ. My analysis of refutational and empirical citations to Organizing is somewhat disconcerting. Science is commonly considered to be built on the critical analysis and empirical testing of seminal ideas. However, only a small percentage

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of citations refuted arguments in Organizing, and even these refutations were fairly minimal in nature. Given Organizings high citation rate and influence, one might expect that a broad array of scholars would have examined it more critically. There were even fewer citations referring to empirical tests, and these often merely cited other empirical literature that the authors felt was relevant (rather than discussing tests they themselves conducted). Although empirical tests of some elements of Organizing do exist in the literature (e.g. Bantz and Smith 1977), they are quite rare. Overall, authors thus appear to be remarkably willing to accept the concepts in Organizing without empirical confirmation, perhaps agreeing with Weick (1989a: 524) that the contribution of social science does not lie in validated knowledge. Even so, it would seem likely that empirical research investigating several of its most frequently cited claims would be valuable. For example, consider the concept of enactment. It hardly seems controversial any longer that organizations and individuals are partly responsible for creating the environment they face. But work is needed to explore issues such as the boundary conditions surrounding such behavior and the extent to which actors differ in their ability to enact their environments. This may represent an opportunity to integrate other literature streams with Weicks work, such as the work on strategic responses to institutional pressures (e.g. Oliver 1991) and managerial discretion (e.g. Abrahamson and Hambrick 1997). Another concept ripe for empirical examination is the claim that research necessarily involves tradeoffs between generalizability, accuracy, and simplicity (Thorngate 1976). Although authors citing Organizing for this idea often discuss the tradeoffs their research makes, they dont cite empirical justification supporting the inevitability of such tradeoffs. In fact, Weick (1999: 802) himself has noted how the claim itself appears to be simultaneously simple, generalizable, and accurate, and thus disproves itself in its strong form. Even granting that such tradeoffs are usually necessary, a significant research need is to examine the literature in organization studies to identify which tradeoffs are most frequently made, and whether these differ among different organizational research topics. There would appear to be little difficulty in empirically investigating a variety of interesting questions surrounding these tradeoffs. Several limitations of the present study should be mentioned. First, I examined the citation contexts in only three journals. While these are among the premier journals of the field, and prior citation studies have investigated a single journal (e.g. Lounsbury and Carberry 2005), future research might consider adopting a sampling approach using a wider range of journals instead of my comprehensive approach using three journals. A second limitation is that I coded the citation contexts independently. However, I would likely be considered a subject matter expert, having read both versions of Organizing multiple times, having had a class with Karl Weick on Organizing, and having taught a sensemaking class multiple times, and in any case the classification of most citation contexts was fairly unambiguous. (The complete citation context data are available from the author.) Finally, I examined only a single work by a single author. This is not unusual in citation studies (e.g. Moravcsik 1988 examined a single work; Cole 1975, Garfield 1980, and Lounsbury and Carberry 2005 all studied a single author).

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Organization Studies 27(11)

The citation analysis and citation context analysis presented in this article tell a great deal about the magnitude and nature of Karl Weicks influence on organization studies as a field, but there are a number of related topics that future research could pursue to expand this understanding. Now that this study has revealed which concepts from Organizing are most frequently cited in the literature, future research could examine whether interpretations of these concepts differ in important ways. Orton and Weick (1990), for example, have shown how the concept of loose coupling is understood five different ways. A similar treatment exploring differences in how the concept of enactment or equivocality is used might be very worthwhile. Future research might also consider why certain central ideas in Organizing have not been influential, or examine these overlooked concepts in greater depth. Finally, future research using citation context analysis to examine other extremely influential works in organization studies would help us better understand the evolution of the field, and perhaps help explain whether it is diversity of content that keeps enduring classics such as Organizing so relevant.
Note

I thank Marlize De Witt for her assistance gathering the citation data, and Guest Editor Kathleen Sutcliffe and the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

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Marc H. Anderson

Marc H. Anderson is a senior lecturer in the Department of Strategy and Human Resource Management at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. His PhD is from the University in Minnesota. He had the good fortune to take Karl Weicks course entitled The Social Psychology of Organizing while completing his MBA at the University of Michigan. His work has been published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and the Journal of Management Studies. His research interests focus on managerial and organizational cognition, sensemaking, social networks, leadership, personality, information gathering, and theory development. Address: University of Waikato, Department of Strategy and Human Resource Management, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand. Email: mha@waikato.ac.nz

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