Karl Edward Weick (born October 31, 1936) is an American organizational theorist who introduced the concepts of "loose coupling", "mindfulness", and "sensemaking" into organizational studies. He is the Rensis Likert Distinguished University Professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Weick was born on October 31, 1936, in Warsaw, Indiana. He earned his bachelor's degree at Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio, in 1958. He went on to The Ohio State University earning his M.A. under the direction of Harold B. Pepinsky in 1960 and his Ph.D. under the direction of Douglas P. Crowne and Milton J. Rosenberg in 1962. Although he tried several degree programs within the psychology department, the department finally built a degree program specifically for Weick and fellow student Genie Plog called "organizational psychology".

From 1962 to 1965, Weick was an assistant professor of psychology at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Six months after arriving at Purdue, he received a letter from John C. Flanagan congratulating him on being the 1961-62 Winner of the Best Dissertation of the Year Award in Creative Talent Awards Program sponsored by the American Institutes for Research. Weick submitted an article based on this research to The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, but it was rejected by the editor, Dan Katz. In an unlikely turn of events one of the referees, Arthur R. (Bob) Cohen, wrote the editor indicating that he would like to change his appraisal of the article. This prompted Katz to reconsider the significance of the article. Finally in 1964, Weick's first article to come out of his dissertation was published.

Weick notes that while at Purdue, he was fortunate to develop close ties with faculty in the Krannert School of Management. It was William Starbuck that suggested Weick write a chapter about laboratory experiments and organizations for the first edition of James G. March's Handbook of Organizations, published in 1965. This ultimately established Weick's "identity" as an organizational psychologist.

Also in 1965, Weick moved to the University of Minnesota as an associate professor of psychology, and was promoted to full professor in 1968. In 1972, he left Minnesota to be a professor of psychology and organizational behavior in the business school at Cornell University, and in 1977 was given the title of Nicholas H. Noyes Professor of Organizational Behavior and Professor of Psychology. From 1977 to 1985, he was the editor of the Administrative Science Quarterly.

In 1984 until 1988, Weick was the Harkins and Co. Centennial Chair in Business Administration at University of Texas at Austin. Finally, he moved to the University of Michigan in 1988, where he remains as the Rensis Likert Distinguished University Professor of Organizational Behavior and Psychology.

Weick uses the term enactment to denote the idea that certain phenomena (such as organizations) are created by being talked about.

Managers construct, rearrange, single out, and demolish many 'objective' features of their surroundings. When people act they unrandomize variables, insert vestiges of orderliness, and literally create their own constraints.