Sub-theme 15:

Organizations and Media                                                  

Convenors:

Call for papers

The sub-theme addresses the general topic of the 24th EGOS Colloquium and applies it to the field of media organizations and to the relationship between media and organizations. It seeks to bring together researchers who study the media field from an organizational or managerial perspective and aims to foster theoretical and empirical research on the upsetting interplay between organizations and media.

In today’s mediatized society, organizations are more 'public' than ever, and media have an important impact on organizations. In this vein, the mass media provide extensive coverage of business, management, and organizational topics. In addition, a specialized business press with particular conventions and practices has emerged, with specific implications for the management of business organizations. Many things we know about organizations we learn (exclusively) from the media, and media discourses affect our thinking in and about organizations.

Business and public organizations are in many ways influenced by or even dependent on the media. Media is a way for firms or public organizations to reach a larger audience, shareholders, or other stakeholders through press releases, press conferences, or corporate events. Media coverage also has an important impact on companies, governments, and other organizations in terms of image, public opinion, sales, or stock price development.

Media are also organizations themselves. The selection, production, and distribution of information provided by the media take place in specific organizational settings and through particular organizational processes. As organizations, the media depend on the availability necessary resources and face financial challenges. As such media organizations – even if their product is considered to be more than an economic good – are subject to the efficiency pressures created by economic markets or political administration. The ongoing processes of professionalization, managerialization, commercialization, or even industrialization of media organizations open up an increasingly important field for organizational studies.

The aim of this sub-theme is to explore the interrelationship between the media and contemporary organizations. This means focusing attention on various kinds of questions concerning the mediatization of organizations (e.g. the impact of media exposure on organizational structure, identity, and power relations in and around organizations) on the one hand and on the commercialization and managerialization of the media on the other. These issues can be approached from different research traditions, studied at multiple levels of analysis (e.g. social field, organization, profession, text), examined through diverse theoretical lenses (e.g. institution, culture, practice, identity, discourse, power), and analyzed by various types of methods (qualitative and quantitative, objectivist and subjectivist).

Papers which address the following themes are invited:

• Specific characteristics of media organizations (e.g. governance structure, value chain, strategy, organizational forms)
• Different forms of media and their organizational impact
• The role of new media and cross-media strategies
• Ethical questions in (business) journalism
• The production of quality media
• The relationship between business organizations and the media
• The role of communication departments and special service companies in managing publicity
• The role of media in the legitimization and naturalization of contemporary management ideas and ideologies
• The mediatization of organizations and its consequences

This is, however, not an exhaustive list. Papers that discuss these and other substantive issues of the media field empirically or conceptually and with regard to recent or historical developments are cordially invited. The convenors welcome a diversity of ideas and methods.
 

Key readings

Ainamo, A., J. Tienari & E. Vaara, E. (2006): Between West and East: A Social History of Business Journalism in Cold War Finland. Human Relations, 59, 5: 611-636.

Carroll, C.E. & M. McCombs (2003): Agenda-Setting Effects of Business News on the Public's Images and Opinions about Major Corporations. Corporation Reputation Review, 6, 1: 36-46.

Davis, A. (2000): Public Relations, Business News and the Reproduction of Corporate Elite Power. Journalism, 1, 3: 282-304.

Deephouse, D.L. (2000): Media Reputation as a Strategic Resource: An Integration of Mass Communication and Resource-Based Theories. Journal of Management, 26, 6: 1091-1112.

Hayward, M.L.A., V.P. Rindova & T.G. Pollock (2004): Believing One's Own Press: The Causes and Consequences of CEO Celebrity. Strategic Management Journal, 25: 637-653.

Kjaer, P. & R. Lange (2005): Infused with News Value: Management, Managerial Knowledge and the Institutionalization of Business News. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 21, 2: 209-233.

Picard, Robert G. (ed.) (2004): Strategic Responses to Media Market Changes. JIBS Research Reports Series No. 2004-2 (download: www.ihh.hj.se/mmt/strategic.html)

Sahlin-Andersson, K. & L. Engwall (2002): The Expansion of Management Knowledge. Carriers, Flows, and Sources. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
 

About the convenors

Peter Kjaer is Associate Professor in the Department of Department of Organization and Industrial Sociology at Copenhagen Business School.

Jochen Koch is Assistant Professor of Management, particularly Organization and Leadership, at the Freie Universität Berlin.

Eero Vaara is Professor in Management and Organization at the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Finland.