Another perspective on organizational democracy: The case of reverse dominance hierarchies [La démocratie organisationnelle autrement : l’exemple des hiérarchies à domination inversée]

The current article concerns the possibility for companies to adopt radical democratic practices. To that purpose, the authors build on the ‘reverse dominance hierarchy' concept, which applies to organizations in which a hierarchical structure paradoxically fosters equality and democracy. An ethnographic study of a worker co-operative is used to describe the egalitarian ethos, the mechanisms by which power is contained, and the atypical roles of managers that are characteristic of such organizations.