Script Adaptation: Understanding Continuity in Local Cooperation after Sector-Level Conflict over Teachers’ Working Time

The interplay between conflict and cooperation in the workplace lies at the heart of theorizing about the relationship between labour and management. This article explores how labour–management relations evolve at the local level after a large-scale, sector-level conflict in 2013 over teachers’ working time in Denmark. In order to engender a stronger understanding of how actors deal with conflict and radical change, the article argues for a theoretical differentiation between two cultural constructs, namely the frames and the scripts that are available to ER actors as different forms of resources for handling change. The theoretical argument of this article is that while frames are important for understanding how collective action is reasoned and voiced, the cognitive frames are not what mainly binds action (i.e. conflict or cooperation). Rather, we need an understanding of the script for appropriate behaviour within institutionalized ER systems and organizations. Thus, Findings show that multiple cognitive frames coexist during change, but it is the rigidity of the ritualized interaction – i.e.  the script – that explains why conflict at the central sector level does not easily spread. The article also finds that the cultural script underpins and enables trust production and cooperation, while the script can adapt even during low trust.

Read the article: 'Script Adaptation: Understanding Continuity in Local Cooperation after Sector-Level Conflict over Teachers’ Working Time', by Nana Wesley Hansen. Published in Journal Work, Employment and Society, December 2023.  

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