This study places systems rationalism - the most important phase in managerial systems discourse’s dissemination - within the context of Cold War’s incipience in the United States. Quantitative and qualitative analyses are offered based on primary data collected systematically from the Harvard Business Review and Advanced Management, supplemented by additional macro-data and secondary historiographic sources. The study’s findings indicate that systems rationalism was shaped by a formative event, short but intensive, combining two processes: the eruption of the Cold War political culture and concurrent managerial struggles over hegemony. Managerial discourse appropriated Cold War ideological concepts and national myths and translated them into rational-instrumental terms. The resultant discursive formation hybridizing particularistic-ethnocentrism and universal-rationalism became the birthplace of systems rationalism. Systems rationalism’s possible contributions to the enhancement of managerial power are discussed, as well as implications for the understanding of present managerial discourse
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