After the hype: revisiting Big Data as a management fashion, 2016–2025

Abstract

This paper revisits the trajectory of Big Data nearly a decade after its initial treatment as a management fashion, using a 2016 study as a baseline. Drawing on management fashion theory, we examine how Big Data evolved from a hyped managerial buzzword into a foundational yet less rhetorically visible element of digital infrastructure. Through a narrative reassessment of academic research, industry reports and bibliometric analyses published between 2016 and 2025, we trace shifts in discourse, diffusion, adoption and technological framing. Our analysis shows that although the symbolic prominence of the ‘Big Data’ label has declined, its core practices have been institutionalized and hybridized within broader AI, analytics and smart technology ecosystems. Big Data no longer operates as a visible management fashion but persists as an embedded infrastructural layer underpinning contemporary data-driven strategies. The findings refine the application of management fashion theory by highlighting post-hype stabilization, retrospective legitimation and hybridization. The paper concludes by reflecting on the limits of the fashion perspective and outlining implications for future research on digital infrastructures and organizational change.