The concept of normative violence is rooted in societal norms, and it has significant implications for organizations. Although organizations are typically seen as a primary recipient of societal norms, organization researchers currently pay limited attention to how organizations modify and adapt such norms to develop and diffuse normative violence. We interviewed 48 undocumented workers and civil society assistants to explore organizations’ role in developing and diffusing normative violence. Our findings help to develop a multi-level framework that explores the interplay between cultural schemas and organizational resources. This framework highlights how specific schemas persist through resource access and contribute to the macro-level development of normative violence, while influencing the micro-level schema development. Our framework also centers on the specific interactions between schemas and resources, thereby pinpointing how particular schemas endure through access to organizational resources and manifest elements that collectively contribute to the development of normative violence at the macro level. Thus, we suggest that organizations are key to both stability and change for the entire multi-level structure of the normative violence. From this perspective, we argue that normative violence cannot be limited to something that happens in organizations but is something that is developed and diffused by and within organizations.
