About

Klaus Weber is a Professor of Management & Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, where he also serves as the faculty director for Sustainability and Social Impact. He is affiliated with the Department of Sociology and the Northwestern Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy. His research concerns the dynamics of organizational and institutional sustainability transitions, the interactions between social movements, corporations, and markets, and economic globalization. Weber specializes in cultural and institutional forms of analysis and methodologies, and his work has been widely published in prominent journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, American Sociological Review, Organization Science, Academy of Management Journal, and Strategic Management Journal, among others. His research has received multiple awards, including best paper awards at the American Sociological Association, Administrative Science Quarterly, and the SYNTEC Conseil en Management. Weber teaches courses on environmental sustainability in Kellogg's MBA program and Northwestern Trienens' MS Energy & Sustainability, as well as doctoral seminars on organization theory, cultural analysis, and research methods. He holds a PhD from the University of Michigan, which he obtained in 2003, and has been a faculty member at Kellogg since 2003.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Social Science
• Sociology
• Computer Science
• Business
• Law
• Public relations
• Positive economics
• Accounting
• Public administration
• Epistemology
• Economics
• Finance

Selected publications

• Camera Solutions for Achieving Cinematic Aesthetics in Live Production

  SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal · 2025-04-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The demand for a cinematic aesthetic—often called the film look—is growing in live productions, particularly for select camera positions. Traditional film settings, such as a 24p frame rate and reduced shutter angle, are not always practical in live environments. Instead, achieving a shallower depth of field becomes the focus, influenced by both the lens's focal length and the imager's size. At many shooting positions, even small 2/3 in. imagers can produce an overly shallow depth of field, while larger sensors create an even shallower field, requiring extremely precise focusing. Rather than universally adopting larger imagers, the optimal approach is to select cameras with imager sizes best suited to each production need. A well-rounded live production setup includes various camera types—standard, super slow-motion, wireless, and compact—all of which must maintain uniformity in color reproduction, gradation, and sharpness through consistent signal processing or compensatory solutions. This paper examines camera characteristics and explores solutions based on the latest Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) imager advancements.

  PublisherDOI

• Bio-Art varieties of the living in artworks from the pre-modern to the Anthropocene

  2024-01-01

  otherOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The Living in Artworks in Sociocultural and Historical Contexts

  Image · 2024-09-13

  book-chapterOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Risk It All: Integrating Diverse Traditions of Risk and Shaping Futures

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2024-07-09

  article

  “Risk” and its “management” are rapidly gaining importance in managerial and organizational contexts. This phenomenon presents an opportunity to advance our research and theories. However, the potential of management scholars is often limited by the complexities of analyzing risk, which arise from diverse theoretical approaches, heterogeneous empirical contexts, and differences in scholarly values. This symposium aims to facilitate an exchange, comparison, and integration of ideas on risk and related research by bringing together four established panelists (Steven Maguire, Sim Sitkin, Michael Useem, & Klaus Weber) for a constructive, interactive discussion. The theme aligns well with the AoM theme, and we anticipate attracting a large audience, particularly from the OMT, SAP, & MOC divisions.

  PublisherDOI

• The Living in Artworks in Sociocultural and Historical Contexts

  transcript Verlag eBooks · 2024-09-25

  book-chapterOpen accessSenior author

  The Living in Artworks in Sociocultural and Historical Contexts 1 Also see https://www.playboy

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Injection: Atlantic Slavery and Commodity Chains

  2023-01-01

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract South Asia, and Central and Eastern Europe were more closely involved with slavery in the Americas than is commonly assumed. Lower costs for labor, raw materials, and solid fuel gave specific regions a competitive edge in the production of commodities used in the barter trade for slaves from West Africa, as well as in provisioning New World plantations. Ironware from the Rhineland; copper and iron from Sweden; Bohemian glassware; and especially Indian cottons and German linen, all contributed to lowering costs in the acquisition of slaves and in the maintenance of plantations. The purchasing power thus generated in Central Europe contributed to the growth of the population and of proto-industries, and ultimately to industrialization. This injection essay illuminates the impact of commodity chains on New World slavery by focusing on the single most important plantation product destined for Europe—sugar—and the two single most important barter commodities destined for Africa: textiles and metalware.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Beyond Information Disclosure: A Communication Perspective on Corporate Sustainability

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2023-07-24

  article

  With increased external pressure on firms to behave sustainably, disclosure of sustainability efforts and performance has become a central concern. Academic research to date, too, has focused on the notion of disclosure as accountability and reporting, studying when firms disclose what information to stakeholders, and whether the information is accurate, giving rise to questions of greenwashing and brownwashing. However, this notion of disclosure as information dissemination is arguably narrow in that it draws attention to communication formats associated with formal reporting. From a communication perspective, firms’ engagement with stakeholders is more comprehensive and includes many additional dimensions. For example, how do firms frame their sustainability actions and how do stakeholders interpret corporate communications? How do different forms of communication about sustainability, for example, dialogical modes or targeted messaging to particular groups, interact with more scripted disclosures? How does communication about sustainability relate to corporate and stakeholder action? Considering sustainability information within a broader communication framework invites such a broader set of questions. In this symposium, we aim to understand firms’ sustainability communications from this broader perspective. To do so, the panel brings together experts engaged in different literatures for an exchange about sustainability communication as a broader organizational practice. Panelists include scholars of corporate communication (to discuss the possible uniqueness of communication about sustainability), scholars specializing in reporting and disclosure (to address the information demanded and received by stakeholders), and scholars studying corporate sustainability practices (to address the relationship of communication with corporate strategy and action). By fostering discussion across areas of research, the symposium hopes to serve as a platform to take stock of different literatures and sketch out an agenda for more integrated research on sustainability communication.

  PublisherDOI

• Sustainability as Culture: A Dialogue on ‘Big S’ Sustainability and Organizations

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2023-07-24

  article

  The symposium explores the intersection between culture and sustainability in organizations, through a panel discussion among four distinguished scholars that work at this intersection. The premise is that while corporate sustainability is becoming increasingly mainstream and important, organizational sustainability initiatives are often partial, uncoordinated and ineffective, because they stay at the level of adopting specific practices and technical solutions without changing the broader context of corporate practice. The panel explores the idea of 'sustainability as culture' and culture change, a more encompassing translation of sustainability into all dimensions of organization that may be required for organizations to become continuous engines of a sustainable future. Panelists draw on research on institutions, organizational and societal culture, temporality and postcolonial theory to revisit fundamental questions and identify research agendas.

  PublisherDOI

• Distilling Authenticity: Materiality and Narratives in Canadian Distilleries’ Authenticity Work

  Academy of Management Journal · 2022-07-05 · 34 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Authenticity is increasingly seen as a source of competitive advantage in many industries. Accordingly, authenticity work, the organizational efforts to develop and sustain believable authenticity claims, has emerged as an important organizational practice. We examined the interplay of materiality and narratives underpinning producers’<br/>authenticity work in the context of incumbent and micro-distilleries<br/>operating in the Canadian whisky industry. We found that producers’<br/>material endowments, especially central product features, anchored what authenticity claims they could credibly narrate. Other material<br/>endowments, such as key people and architectural design, were used to reinforce the integrity of authenticity claims. Our study extends our understanding of authenticity as a valued organizational resource. First,<br/>we identify two mechanisms, anchoring and reinforcement, through which materiality both constrains and facilitates organizations’ authenticity narratives. Second, our research brings to the fore how audience members’ experiential closeness to producers colors their<br/>perceptions of authenticity, and we show how material artifacts can<br/>enhance such closeness. Third, our findings enrich the understanding of competitive value of authenticity in the context of strategy by unpacking how producers’ material endowments may constitute a resource or a liability.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Managing for the Distant Future: A Research Agenda for the Fight Against Climate Change

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2021-07-26

  articleSenior author

  As it is becoming clear that companies must be much more consequential in the fight against climate change, we need to know more about how organizational actors navigate in this fight. Although international institutions and climate agencies have warned about the implications of climate change for decades, it is only recently that companies are making more specific commitments that reach into the distant futures, such as to become carbon neutral by 2030 (e.g. Apple, Google, Microsoft, P&G), 2040 (e.g. Amazon), or 2050 (e.g. BP, Dow). For most companies this implies that they have to overcome pressure from short-term performance and go well beyond their habitual strategic time horizons into unknown territories. This symposium brings together experienced scholars discussing how we may study and conceptualize the challenges that confront managers, as they begin to integrate concerns for distant future climate change into their ongoing solutions.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Brayden G King

  11 shared

• Henning Ottmann

  Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

  10 shared

• Mary Ann Glynn

  9 shared

• Frank den Hond

  9 shared

• Frank G. A. de Bakker

  Université de Lille

  9 shared

• Roy Suddaby

  Washington State University

  9 shared

• Gerald F. Davis

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  8 shared

• Michael Lounsbury

  University of Alberta

  8 shared

Education

• PhD, Management & Organizations

  University of Michigan

  2003

Awards & honors

• Ned Smith PhD Research Mentorship Award, Kellogg School of M…
• Research Committee Service Award, OMT Division, Academy of M…
• Faculty Fellow, Yale Center for Cultural Sociology (2014)
• ASQ Award for Scholarly Contribution, Administrative Science…
• Faculty Award for Diversity, Northwestern Graduate School (2…