Paper
Legal Ambiguity and Symbolic Structures: Organizational Mediation of Civil Rights Law
Published May 1, 1992 · L. Edelman
American Journal of Sociology
1,423
Citations
105
Influential Citations
Abstract
Laws that regulate the employment relation tend to set forth broad and often ambiguous principles that give organizations wide latitude to construct the meaning of compliance in a way that responds to both environmental demands and managerial interests. Organizations respond initially by elaborating their formal structures to create visible symbols of compliance. As organizations construct and institutionalize forms of compliance with laws, they mediate the impact of those laws on society. The author uses data from a nationwide survey of 346 organizations to develop models of the creation and institutionalization of organizationally constructed symbols of compliance following the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Highly CitedOrganizations construct visible symbols of compliance with civil rights laws, mediating the impact of these laws on society, in response to ambiguous principles in employment laws.
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