In the half century since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, virtually every company now has anti-discriminatory procedures and policies in place. Many commentators point to the existence of such measures and have proclaimed that significant progress has been made. Lauren B. Edelman s book tells quite a different story, showing not only how, but why, discrimination and inequality still persist in the American workplace. Because the law regulating organizations tends to be broad and ambiguous, managers, HR departments, and ...
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In the half century since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, virtually every company now has anti-discriminatory procedures and policies in place. Many commentators point to the existence of such measures and have proclaimed that significant progress has been made. Lauren B. Edelman s book tells quite a different story, showing not only how, but why, discrimination and inequality still persist in the American workplace. Because the law regulating organizations tends to be broad and ambiguous, managers, HR departments, and lawyers within organizations play a critical role in shaping what these laws actually mean in practice, often infusing legal rules with managerial values and ways of thinking in the process. This managerialization of law often results in organizational policies and procedures that, while paying symbolic lip service to legal principles, still fail to dispel longstanding patterns of discrimination and inequality. Just as importantly, Edelman shows how the understandings of law that evolve within organizations can and do seep back into the legal domain, unobtrusively influencing lawyers for both plaintiffs and defendants and ultimately even judges. She shows, for example, how judges defer to ideas about what it means to comply with laws which were, in fact, constructed within corporations. The first, comprehensive theory of the relationship between law and organizations, Working Law uncovers the institutionalized organizational practices and culture within workplaces that give meaning to law and shape legal consciousness in the courtroom and in society more generally."
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