The making of the Critical Paradigm: From Genesis to Legitimation within the Francophone Community of Information Systems Management[La fabrique du paradigme critique : de la genèse à la légitimation dans la communauté francophone en management des systèmes d’information]

The critical paradigm in Information Systems (IS) research advances a reflexive, often emancipatory project aimed at producing socially relevant knowledge by questioning the field's dominant assumptions (Alvesson & Deetz, 2000; Rowe, 2009). Despite a recent editorial in Systèmes d'Information et Management calling for stronger engagement with critical perspectives (Michel et al., 2025), its institutionalization within the Francophone IS community has remained slower and more discontinuous than in the international landscape. Drawing on the "legitimacy-as-perception" framework (Bitektine & Haack, 2015; Suddaby et al., 2017), this paper examines how individual propriety judgments are formed, aggregated, or remain silent at the collective level. The study adopts a qualitative design combining semi-structured interviews and a documentary analysis of 26 AIM conference papers produced by five authors identified as critical scholars. Exploratory findings reveal a prolonged phase of dormancy shaped by suppressor factors (anticipated career costs, access to publication outlets, collaborative dependencies), reinforced by the absence of a critical doctoral genealogy and a weakly dialogical heterogeneity of critical registers. The recent activation of an evaluative mode is driven by foundational positionings, international recognition, and the rise of salient socio-technical objects (AI, the COVID-19 crisis, surveillance), fostering the structuring of dedicated critical arenas.