Communicating management: The role of the mass media in the institutionalization of professional management and productivity discourse in Israel

Against the tendency to ground depictions of management professionalization in the analysis of professional media, this article argues that such literature represents the end of the institutionalization process rather than its beginning. Based on a systematic analysis of one general (non-professional) daily newspaper in Israel, I suggest that the mass media constitute a vehicle through which professional ideas are crystallized, disseminated, and become “taken for granted” prior to the emergence of management as an autonomous field. I show how a particular managerial concept, that of productivity, emerges in the popular media and travels into the managerial field evoking a process of institutionalization. Thus, it enables managers to establish and legitimize their distinct professional identity.