Brexit’s practical implications for European Works Councils: Shared norms and social networks as a substitute for crumbling regulation?

European Works Councils (EWCs) are legally, normatively and culturally embedded institutions of transnational employee representation. Brexit disrupted this configuration by generating legal ambiguity for U.K.-based and U.K.-operating firms. Building on organisational and historical institutionalism, we analyse how EWCs responded to this shock through three cases where U.K. delegates were (partly) excluded from the EWC. We show that normative and cultural-cognitive embeddedness can offset regulatory destabilisation, but only under specific conditions. Institutional trajectories appear to vary with national and organisational characteristics (e.g. national employment relations systems, company specifics), pre-existing trust and collaboration within EWCs and the strategies of key actors, particularly EWC chairs and management.