Beyond the Buzzwords: why Ideas and discourse matter in Management

The social sciences have seen significant changes over the past three decades, with areturn of ideas and discourses as crucial factors in management and organisational studies. Thisarticle analyses the approaches and analytical strategies from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)and Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) that have been critically applied to the management field.We approach this by revisiting public administration literature, which is where the discoursevariable originally emerged in the social sciences. Our contribution is an extensive review of theinternational literature to quantitatively and qualitatively assess academic output in this area.Based on the "argumentative turn," we argue for three socially mediated dimensions—logistic,ideational, and material—that act as an interdisciplinary link with linguistics. We conclude thatdiscourses are important to management because they advocate for constructivism as anepistemological pillar, reinforcing the power and role of ideas and discourses in institutionalanalysis.