The Internal Legal Culture of Organizations

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95-11842 Edelman Contemporary laws impose substantial responsibilities upon employers to adhere to and enforce government policies designed to protect civil rights and other aspects of the employer-employee relation. Despite this, the laws regulating the employment relation tend to be broad and ambiguous, leaving organizations wide latitude to interpret and decide how to comply with them. Previous research indicates that organizations respond to these laws by creating internal legal structures that serve as symbols of attention to law. But research give few clues concerning a number of important questions concerning how these structures shape the internal legal culture of their organizations or whether (how much?) they influence employees to assert their legal rights when they perceive them to be infringed or pacify employees by creating the impression that the employer must be obeying the law. Drawing on organization theory, this study is a broad investigation of the creation and characteristics of internal legal cultures within organizations and the extent to which laws designed to protect employees actually change organizational culture and affect the work lives of employees. It is based on interviews with general, legal, and personnel administrative officials in six organizations and on a survey of 200 employees in each of these organizations. At the intraorganizational level, it will investigate employees views of the realization of rights in organizations and of the likelihood of their opting for legal solutions to employment problems. At the organization level, the study will elucidate officials' conceptions of law and enactment %%%% The laws regulating the employment relation tend to be broad and ambiguous, leaving organizations wide latitude to interpret and decide how to comply with them. Previous research indicates that organizations respond to these laws by creating internal legal structures that serve as symbols of attention to law. But research give few clues concern ing a number of important questions concerning how these structures shape the internal legal culture of their organizations or whether (how much?) they influence employees to assert their legal rights when they perceive them to be infringed or pacify employees by creating the impression that the employer must be obeying the law. Drawing on organization theory, this study is a broad investigation of the creation and characteristics of internal legal cultures within organizations and the extent to which laws designed to protect employees actually change organizational culture and affect the work lives of employees. It is based on interviews with general, legal, and personnel administrative officials in six organizations and on a survey of 200 employees in each of these organizations. At the intraorganizational level, it will investigate employees views of the realization of rights in organizations and of the likelihood of their opting for legal solutions to employment problems. At the organization level, the study will elucidate officials' conceptions of law and enactment of internal legal culture. ****