Publish at February 04 2026 Updated February 04 2026
The issue of transforming power structures, decision-making circuits and symbolic recognition within organizations is now central to the social sciences applied to management. Facilitation, understood as a set of practices designed to improve the quality of collective interactions, lies at the crossroads of these issues. It invites us to redefine the way actors organize their decision-making and share power, but the real effects of these transformations require critical analysis in the light of current research in organizational sociology and Critical Management Studies.
Classical analyses in organizational sociology emphasize that power is not simply a matter of formal hierarchy, but unfolds in the interplay of actors who control areas of uncertainty and influence key decisions. This analytical approach, as elaborated by Crozier and Friedberg, remains relevant to understanding why certain participatory mechanisms do not profoundly modify power relationships when they do not affect the formal rules of the organizational game. From this perspective, facilitation can improve the fluidity of interactions without redistributing structural influence in any lasting way.
Recent contributions to the Critical Management Studies (CMS) literature take this critique a step further. In a systematic review published in 2025, Spicer and Alvesson highlight the limits of an overly "one-dimensional" critique of management, often focusing on observations of dysfunction rather than concrete proposals for social and organizational transformation. The authors call for a critique that integrates imaginary alternative practices, articulating theoretical reflection and practical effects on power structures and collective governance.
From this broader perspective, facilitation could be analyzed not simply as a procedural improvement, but as an experimental space for other forms of governance and redistribution of power.
This ambition finds a conceptual echo in authors such as Julie Battilana, Isabelle Ferreras and their colleagues, who study democratic forms of work organization. Their research on the democratization of work argues for a profound reconfiguration of internal forms of governance, where workers are genuinely involved in strategic decisions, and classic hierarchical structures are rebalanced by distributed forms of authority.
Participative systems can exist without transforming strategic decision-making circuits. As long as the final decision remains concentrated in the same institutional places, facilitation risks playing a mainly symbolic role: increased recognition of certain voices in deliberative spaces, without any substantial modification of decision-making power.
The challenge, then, is not so much to open up debate as to institutionalize collective contributions within the rules of governance.
Battilana et al. argue that a genuine democratization of the workplace implies a transformation of power regimes, making strategic decisions accessible to actors who do not normally participate in them.
This implies redefining the power to act, rather than simply expressing it in a deliberative forum.
Facilitating practices can produce a powerful symbolic recognition effect, enhancing relational skills and forms of situated knowledge. But if this recognition is not accompanied by changes in modes of evaluation, career progression or access to resources, it remains limited to a form of "supervised participation", which preserves existing power structures.
To illustrate these dynamics, we can think of participative decision-making practices inspired by models such as sociocracy or democratic organization, which aim to share decision-making power through interconnected circles and consent mechanisms rather than simple bottom-up consultation. This type of governance, still marginal in large organizations, offers a field of investigation for measuring how facilitation can be integrated into a more redistributive institutional architecture of power.
In addition, contemporary debates in CMS (Critical Management Studies) stress the importance of articulating management criticism with a robust empirical analysis of practices. It's not just a question of denouncing the managerial instrumentation of participatory arrangements, but of documenting how real actors negotiate, resist, adapt or circumvent these arrangements in their concrete working conditions.
Such an approach will enable us to understand whether facilitation promotes collective appropriation of areas of organizational uncertainty, or whether it is content with symbolic encroachment that has no lasting effect on power structures.
Finally, this work must be situated within a more general framework of critical sociology of organizations, which includes not only internal mechanisms of power, but also their inscription in broader social, economic and political constraints.
This perspective invites us to think of facilitation not just as a local dialogue device, but as part of a broader issue: how do we rethink collective governance, democratic deliberation and forms of power mobilization within contemporary organizations?
Bibliography
Spicer, A., & Alvesson, M. (2025). Critical management studies: A critical review. Journal of management studies, 62, 446-483.
Battilana, J., Ferreras, I., Yen, J., & Ramarajan, L. (2022). Democratizing work: Redistributing power in organizations for a democratic and sustainable future. Journal of Management Studies.
Battilana, J., & Casciaro, T. (2022). Power, for all: How it works and why it's everyone's business. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Battilana, J., Ferreras, I., & Méda, D. (2022). Democratize work: The case for reorganizing the economy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Participative management - Wikipedia https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_participatif
Sociocracy - Wikipedia https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocratie
You might also like:
Green jobs and unemployment: a contradictory relationship
An integrative, educational approach to fighting unemployment while protecting the environment.
Integrating the abacus into maths teaching
Consider culturally relevant solutions for teaching/learning mathematics. The soroban, also known as the abacus or abacus, is one of the factors behind Asia's high performance in mathematics, and its use should be further promoted worldwide, especially in Africa.
There are many ways to learn from a project, applied to the design of an event organization. It is possible to learn how to go further collectively by evaluating on the one hand the gap with what was planned and on the other hand what actually happened
Learning to the end, learning from your own end
This is an article for those who are learning to the limit and wonder how far they can learn. Without suspense, the answer is: until the end. But you have to be prepared...
The age of AI-enhanced creativity
Artificial intelligence is redefining creativity. This is achieved by creating collaboration between humans and machines. It enriches brainstorming, stimulates innovation and finds its place in education. While its rise raises questions about the authenticity and ownership of works, teachers and students can explore new forms of expression while developing a critical eye for these tools.
