Beyond the Buzzwords: Why Ideas and Discourse Matter in Management

Abstract The social sciences have seen significant changes over the past three decades, with a return of ideas and discourses as crucial factors in management and organisational studies. This article examines the critical frameworks and analytical strategies for studying language and power that have been applied to the management field. We approach this by revisiting the literature on public administration, the domain where discourse first emerged as a key variable in the social sciences. Our contribution is an extensive review of the international 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 argue that discursive approaches are essential to management because they anchor the field in constructivism, thereby highlighting the power of ideas in the analysis of institutional dynamics.