Margaret Archer's legacy to business and management studies: a bibliometric analysis

This paper explores Margaret Archer’s enduring influence on business and management studies (BMS) while offering a methodological blueprint for other applied social sciences. Through a systematic bibliographic analysis of 241 articles, it shows how Archer’s realist social theory – especially the morphogenetic approach, critical realism, and concepts of reflexivity and relationality – has shaped sub-fields including organization studies and information systems. While 40% of citations reference Archer generically as a critical realist pioneer, 60% engage with her original contributions. Citation patterns reveal early adoption in organization studies and heterodox economics, later expanding to public management, ICT, and entrepreneurship. Beyond BMS, the paper contributes a replicable method for tracing theoretical diffusion across disciplines, offering insights for sociology, education, and international relations. It calls for deeper engagement with Archer’s later works on morphogenic and post-human societies to address contemporary challenges such as technological change and dehumanization.