ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the fundamental importance of social context in leading to the understanding and implementation of law. Despite similar legal definitions, individuals and organizational decision makers interpreted law differently, through their own social context. 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. Each of the three levels of social context is fundamentally important to the interpretation and implementation of law. The chapter summarizes the more specific empirical findings, using examples from both the managerial level and the employee level. The findings include: there are national differences in the understandings of similar law, the organizational context has a role in shifting attention from one set of national laws to another, there is a cognitive link between informal organizational rule structures and state law, and individuals sometimes give priority to the normative orderings of the organization over state law.
