Legal Readings: Employee Interpretation and Mobilization of Law

Abstract

Organizational scholars have studied the impact of employment law on the structure of formal organizations but have given little attention to how law affects everyday life within work organizations. Here we propose a “legal readings model” of how law is received and mobilized by employees. This posits that law within organizations is composed of employees' beliefs about law and mobilization of law, which develop from interaction with employers' law-related actions. Employees' legal readings function much like a prism, redirecting legal rules in multiple and sometimes unanticipated directions.