| Abstrakt: |
Are strong laws more effective than weak laws? Scholars of law and organizations argue that while weak and ambiguous laws lead symbolic compliance with little substance, laws with coercive pressures will lead to real changes. Tough laws, however, intensify the tension between external pressure for change and internal desire for stability, leaving organizations little room for bargaining. In an attempt to resolving the tension, organizations may make changes that are procedurally compliant but do not embrace the spirit of the law, leading to unexpected, negative outcomes, which I call negative compliance. To illustrate this form of organizational response, I present corporate responses to the EEO Law in Japan. When the law was passed in 1985, companies symbolically responded to the mild law, by constructing a practice that continued to segregate men to promotional jobs and women to non-promotional jobs. After the law strengthened and banned the practice in 1997, companies complied with the increased pressure by abandoning the practice, but in doing so, they eliminated the non-promotional jobs that mainly hired women; as a result, ironically, companies hired fewer, not more, women. These findings suggest that coercive pressures can hamper, rather than enhance, the effectiveness of a law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
