A social constructionist view (Berger and Luckmann.

A social constructionist view (Berger and Luckmann, 1966) remind ofs that much about the way we understand organizations, as meditateed in our implicit theories (Downey and Brief, 1986) is likely to be controll by way of our interactions with social agents who affect the availability, salience, vividness or value of the information we receive (Salancik and Pfeffer 1978) Leadership universals in particular appear as prominent features of these socially put togethered realities (Calder, 1977); Pfeffer and salancik, 1978; Meindl, Ehrlich, and Dukerich, 1985; Meindl, 1990) Consistent with these views, we argue here that collective conceptions of organization, and of leadership in particular, are expressions of a national tillage at large in which one as well as the other leaders and followers are embedded and, as similar are open to those institutional forces that create and disseminate "business" moderns and information. In this research we sought to explore the construction of leadership images as it is related to changing organizational performances. We focus here in succession the popular business press as an influential agent in this process

The Importance of Media for the Social Construction

of Leadership

Many social analysts have recognized the importance of mass media in shaping views of ourselves and the world around us (eg Lippmann, 1921; Lazarsfeld and Merton, 1948; McLuhan and Fiore, 1967) Research in mass communication has shown that the media influence people's cognition in a variety of ways (Katz, 1980; Roberts and Maccoby, 1985) The media may determine what issues are important and station agenda for what the public thinks about (eg McComb and Shaw, 1972) transmit knowledge and information (eg Alper and Leidy, 1970) reinforce or crystalize existing beliefs (Klaper, 1960) change existing beliefs (Paisley, 1981) and cultivate perceptions of the nature of social reality (Noelle-Neumann, 1973 1974; Gerbner et al., 1978)

The last decade has witnessed an unprecedent expansion in the level and impressed sign of media coverage devoted to matters of organization and management. Interested publics are now routinely serv on various business media outlets, perhaps chiefly conspicuously by a business pres with mass appeal. According to the Standard Rate and Data Service, the six-month average circulation in 1989 of the Wall road Journal was 1.93 million, that of Fortune, Business Week, and Inc. were 707 870 and 754 million, respectively. In addition to similar dedicated business publications, popular newspapers and magazines, of that kind as the New York Times and Time, with their have huge circulations (1.17 and 168 million), regularly feature business and management reports. similar mammoth figures are complemented by way of the extensive reach and appeal of television and other mass media outlets

While an ostensible mission of the business media is to provide facts and information about business organizations, it is clear theat business journalism increases into areas well beyond simple reporting, transmitting to us a variety of deeper messages regarding organizations and their functioning. Media analysts have recognized its ideological and constructive aspects (Caudwell, 1971; Gramsci, 1971; Altheide, 1976; Hall, 1977; Williams, 1977; Fishman, 1980; Jensen 1987)

The media achieves its impact from one side its consideration of and interaction with the audience. recently made knowns organizations are directly dependent forward market forces and appeal directly to popular opinions (Schudson 1978; Gans, 1979) To maintain the allegiance of the audience, stranges selection and treatment has to take into account its viewing and reading behavior (Gans, 1979) and be responsive to its needinesss and gratifications (e.g., Katz, Blumer and Gurevitch, 1979; Kennan and Hadley, 1986) Furthermore, the interpretation of meanings according to readers is not passive reception or discovery of what is inherent in the just discovereds but active interaction with the clause involving pre-existing cognition and attitudes, previous and generally received expectations, and the nature of the perceived social and physical environment (Dervin, 1981; Swanson, 1981) The relationships between the pres and the audience are therefore indicative of a assemblage of societal interests in supplying and consuming certain kinds of information (McLuhan, Hutchon and McLuhan, 1980) In this regard, constructions of leadership are regularly and widely produc for our consumption (eg Klapp, 1964; Goode 1978) with transmissions frequently taking the form of portraits and images of great leadership figures (eg Boorstin, 1961) the two in the public (e.g., Merrill, 1965; Maddox and Robins, 1981) and private (eg Christ and Johnson 1985) sectors. These images fe and expand our appetites for leadership cropss appealing not only to our collective commitments to the general [i]or[/i] abstract notion but fixating us in particular onward the personas and characteristics of leaders themsevels (Meindl, 1990)

In this research we were interested in understanding to what degree the business press, in conjunction with their reading publics, organize a leaders's image over time in light of radical changes in the fortunes of a firm. When we say "the business press" or "the media" we appertain to a field of moderns organizations in general, not to individual just discovereds writers and reporters. We withhold in mind the fact that authors who are credited with having written an news article are only the same part of the hierrarchy in typical recently made knowns organizations, whose ranks include policymakers, top editors, section heads, writers, reporters, and researchers as well as support, dissemination, and business staffs (Gans, 1979)