Who's in the Room Matters: Context‐Responsive Praxis in Foresight Facilitation

ABSTRACT Participatory foresight is widely credited with enrichment of the foresight process, more robust and reliable results for decision‐making, and increased awareness and motivation among participants. However, these benefits are either realized or undermined in the room, depending on the facilitator whose situated judgments mediate culturally heterogeneous engagement. Despite this, and although the facilitator is a recognized figure in foresight literature, the role has rarely been constituted as an object of systematic comparative inquiry; this study addresses that gap. Drawing on strategy‐as‐practice, contingency theory, and cross‐cultural management theory, we focus on facilitators as practitioners whose praxis corresponds ephemeral workshop systems with the culturally shaped expectations participants bring into the room, focusing on Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance as two of the most consequential cultural dimensions for participatory futures work. We conducted semi‐structured interviews with 21 experienced foresight practitioners across 16 country contexts and analyzed the data through reflexive thematic analysis. Four primary themes were developed: managing power and hierarchy, calibrating for uncertainty and cognitive diversity, creating inclusive participation climates, and deploying methodological scaffolding. Three theoretical extensions follow: (i) professional epistemology as a more proximate predictor of uncertainty engagement than national culture; (ii) hierarchy as a phased resource deployed sequentially rather than neutralized; and (iii) the opening sequences of a workshop as the constitutive “division line” at which workshop norms are fixed. These extensions consolidate into a diagnostic 2 × 2 typology that maps cohort profiles onto facilitation design choices, providing practitioners with an actionable framework for context‐responsive pre‐workshop planning.