The Collapse of Sensemaking in Organizations

Weick, K. E. (1993). The Collapse of Sensemaking in Organizations: The Mann Gulch Disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38(4), 628-652.

Type

Journal article

Intellectual base

Primary research

Year

1993

Volume

38

Issue

4

Pages

628-652

DOI

10.2307/2393339

DOI registrant

JSTOR

Link

https://doi.org/10.2307/2393339

Cited from

literature_literary_theory, organizational_management

Cited by

4 citations across 4 artifacts.

Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.

Primes

• Collective Systemic Learning

  • This sourceClassic case showing how the breakdown of shared sensemaking and role structure produces catastrophic failure.

• Formal vs. Informal Structures

  • This sourceAnalyzes the Mann Gulch fire as the interrelated collapse of role structure and sensemaking in a minimal organization.

• Narrative
  • Listed in the references but not attached to a specific claim.
• Sensemaking
  • The identity-grounding property that makes frames incompatible with group identity systematically dismissed or reformulated

    This sourceClassic case analysis of the breakdown of collective sensemaking under crisis; documents how individual and collective meaning-making can fail to align, generating coordination failure with catastrophic consequences.

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