ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the fundamental importance of social context in leading to the understanding and implementation of law. Studies attributing variation in law to ‘social context’ are overlooking at least three distinct conceptual categories within social context: the national context, the organizational context and the individual context. The organizational context provides a set of rules and norms from which organizational actors, such as employees and managers, interpret and enact law. The more accessible concepts of respect and courtesy, readily available in the organizational context of the organizations, replaced the legal words found in sexual harassment policies or the law. Individuals determine illegality through their national context, but these interpretations are informed by other aspects of the social context. Parliamentary successes must be sustained by contextual interpretations long after the passing of the legal text. National differences are important, but they are mediated by factors from the organizational context.
