ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to analyze how much the articulation of both private and public organizations influenced, by means of mobilizing resources and framing strategies, the process of social construction of the Federal Act n. 9.454/1997, which established the Civil Identity Registry in Brazil (RIC), from 1997 to 2011. The present work is based on the assumption that legal texts are open to interpretations regarding their applicability, reach and validity in organizational fields, resulting in different conceptions of legality. As such, we consider public and private organizations as engaged agents in politics of production and maintenance of legal meanings. Our research covers the period from 1997 to 2011, which comprehends the gap between the legal validity and the social effec tiveness of the Federal Act n. 9.454/1997. We use longitudinal data based on documentary sources and sectional retrospective data based on semi-structured interviews. Thematic based qualitative content analysis was performed. We use a priori and emergent categories. The results show that both public and private organizations were engaged in the development of a shared interpretation of the law, although with different interests. Moreover, the findings revealed actions in conflict with institutionalized norms and contradictory to existent laws - but they were legitimized because of their adherence to a socially shared notion of legality. In conclusion, we argue that the notion of legitimacy and legality are intertwined through the shared meanings given to laws in an organizational field. As such, we contend the theoretical proximity between organizational institutionalism and sociology of law in order to consider the legal environment as partial content of the institutional context of organizations.
Legal environment; Social actors' engagement; Legality; Framing; Civil Identity Registry