Handling management ideas: Gatekeeping, editors and professional magazines

•Editors’ perceptions of an idea's newsworthiness are a vital element in gatekeeping.•Variations in resource constraints affect editors’ perceived dependence on external authors and advertisers.•Resource-rich magazines mirror a logic of autonomy and independence.•Resource-poor magazines are more inclined to collude with management intellectuals.•Later articles on management ideas are less novel, unusual and newsworthy.

SummaryWhile business media are important in the transfer of management ideas, there has been little attention to the question how media-internal processes shape the way the media address these ideas. Our study shows how editorial norms and routines at professional magazines interact with external pressures to produce a unique process of gatekeeping management ideas. Our findings show that editors’ perceptions of an idea's newsworthiness are vital in gatekeeping. Nonetheless, the role of the media in the dissemination of management ideas is critically dependent on resource constraints and the related influence of external authors and advertisers. Whereas resource-rich magazines can follow a logic of autonomy and independence, magazines with fewer resources are more inclined to collude with management intellectuals, consulting firms and advertisers to create interest in certain management ideas.