Karl E. Weick - Selection Quotes

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That's what this entire book is about. The basic recipe coordinates with organizing in the way outlined in Figure 5.3 (saying = enactment, selection = seeing what I say, retention = knowledge of what I said). The organism or group enacts equivocal raw talk, the talk is viewed retrospectively, sense is made of it, and this sense is then stored as knowledge in the retention process. The aim of each process has been to reduce equivocality and to get some idea of what has occurred.

Karl E. Weick
The process of theory construction in organizational studies is portrayed as imagination disciplined by evolutionary processes analogous to artificial selection. The quality of theory produced is predicted to vary as a function of the accuracy and detail present in the problem statement that triggers theory building, the number of and independence among the conjectures that attempt to solve the problem, and the number and diversity of selection criteria used to test the conjectures.

Karl E. Weick
In the recipe, How can I know what I think until I see what I say, saying equates to variation, seeing equates to selection of meaning in what was said, and thinking equates to retention of an interpretation. The retained interpretation may then be imposed subsequently to interpret similar saying (retention is credited) in order to construct cumulative understanding, test past labels for their validity, or generalize older labels to newer events.

Karl E. Weick
By their very nature the problems imposed on organizational theorists involve so many assumptions and such a mixture of accuracy and inaccuracy that virtually all conjectures and all selection criteria remain plausible and nothing gets rejected or highlighted.

Karl E. Weick