This case study extends legalization research to the public administration field by exploring how the legal environment of complex public organizations transforms social processes for resolving employee disputes. Data analysis revealed that the legal environment constituted by the Commonwealth of Virginia Employee Grievance Program tends to result in the circumvention of immediate supervisors, thereby obviating their positional authority to resolve employee grievances in a nonadversarial way. Findings suggest that grievance procedures designed to mimic judicially legitimate process and procedure alter the way flexibility, trust, and shared meanings govern the essence of organizational relations and result in economic and systemic costs.
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