The road to organisational populism

Since populism is considered to be inherent to politics and each organisation a place where politics thrives, this article coins the concept of organisational populism to help firms and employees alike identify and use their voice against the phenomenon. We adapt Mintzberg's political arena and then Rosanvallon's three-fold simplification social, procedural and hierarchical) to the management sciences. Both studies help us construct a theoretical perspective on organisational populism (OP). In addition, the three simplifications present different characteristics and lead to specific behaviours, which then flourish thanks to the organisational populist leader's ability to manipulate employees' emotions. Dangerous by definition, this form of populism progressively increases the level of psycho-social risk and accentuates suffering at work by multiplying conflicting demands and by deepening the denial of stakeholder's vis-à-vis organisational reality.