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

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between sector-level conflict and local-level cooperation. Drawing on longitudinal data on working time cooperation in the school sector collected before and after a sector-level lockout of teachers in 2013, the article argues that management and labour at the local level enter a process of cultural script adaptation when faced with radical change. The cultural script is rooted in the ritualized enactment of the collective bargaining model in Denmark. Findings also show that multiple cognitive frames coexist during change, but it is the rigidity of the ritualized interaction – that is, the script – which 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.