Decision support in participatory contexts: The organisational design dimension

International audience; Organizing multiple stakeholders' participation in decision processes is now a widespread request, especially in public contexts. Therefore, analysts are expected to provide policy makers (the clients) with scientifically sound and practically realizable approaches to deal with the complexity induced by inclusiveness requirements. Operational Research and Management Science (OR/MS) literature has been addressing these issues for a number of decades now, with a visible consequence being the expansion of analyst's role from problem solver to facilitator of stakeholder interactions. Within this evolutionary movement of the role of an analyst, this paper develops a literature analysis that goes beyond OR/MS to highlight an additional but complementary and vital role for today's analysts: that of an 'organisational designer'. Specifically, we claim that an analyst creates-consciously or otherwisethe organisation through which the set of stakeholders involved in the decision process interact, which in turn shapes the final decision recommendations and outcomes. We also claim that the ability of this organisation to fit contextual requirements is of utmost importance for the success of an analyst's intervention. Therefore, organisational design of stakeholder participation becomes a key issue to be explicitly addressed within OR interventions. This paper is organised to support these two claims. Firstly, it describes the terms of organisational design and the mechanisms through which it may influence the outcomes of decision processes. Secondly, we review how these aspects are already discussed within OR/MS literature in order to highlight current limitations and future possibilities for greater investigation of the place and role of organizational design in OR/MS research and practice.