Abstract Social norms are one of the mechanisms for decentralized societies to achieve coordination amongst individuals. Such norms are con?ict resolution strategies that develop from the population interactions instead of a centralized entity dictating agent protocol. One of the most important characteristics of social norms is that they are imposed by the members of the society, and they are responsible for the ful?llment and defense of these norms. By allowing agents to manage (impose, abide by and defend) social norms, societies achieve a higher degree of freedom by lacking the necessity of authorities supervising all the interactions amongst agents. In this article we summarize the contributions of my dissertation, where we provide an unifying framework for the analysis of social norms in virtual societies, providing an strong emphasis on virtual agents and humans.