Similar to How can I access the ServletContext from within a JAX-WS web service?, is there a way to access applicationContext, easier than this?
import javax.ann
I don't think that the web service should have to know about web or servlet contexts or its application context. I don't see why it should have to know any of that. Shouldn't it be far more passive? Inject what it needs and let it do its work. The service interactions with a client should be based on a contract defined up front. If it has to get unknown values from a context of some kind, how will clients know what needs to be set or how to set it?
I'd go further and say that a web service should be a wrapper for a Spring service interface. It's just one more choice among all the possible ways to expose it. Your web service should do little more than marshal and unmarshal the XML request/response objects and collaborate with Spring services.