Barriers and opportunities to innovation for legal service firms: a thematic analysis-based contextualization

Abstract

The paper discusses innovation within the traditionally conservative legal sector as a diverse service improvement mechanism that models positive firm change. A resource-based view and practice-based view blend provided a systematic theoretical benchmark for the study. Fifty-three semi-structured interviews were conducted with law professionals from seven countries capturing their day-to-day work experiences and identifying the barriers that hinder and the opportunities that support innovation adoption in legal firms today. A data-intensive thematic analysis uncovers six core themes: human factor and culture, client and market, technology, organizational transitions, legal processes, and education. The paper contributes to the state of art by (i) contextualizing each of these themes and their diverse underpinning dimensions; (ii) developing an evidence-based conceptual framework that critically assesses legal innovation uptake barriers and opportunities; and (iii) advancing the theoretical and empirical understanding of law service operations demonstrating the rationale for legal firms to invest in technology, multidisciplinary education, and training, and to adopt leaner, hybrid and more client-driven management approaches.

The influence of management innovation on the organisational performance of KIBS: the mediating role of service innovation and technology

“…Overall, in this study, it is established that, in the light of RBV, performance is induced by the synergy of internal resources (Barney, 1991), which are managerial and technological knowledge. Similarly, findings of the current study, performance in KIBS firms can result from the influence of management practices and processes and organisational structures on the use of TEC (Giotopoulos et al , 2017; Michalakopoulou et al , 2021). Businesses that dedicate resources to management practices or new forms of organisation are in a better position to use new technologies effectively.…”

“…It is to be noted that different types of firms may have significant differences in applications of TEC [e.g. audit sector (Le Anh et al , 2021), legal services firms (Michalakopoulou et al , 2021)].…”

“…organisations to adopt new technologies. According to Michalakopoulou et al (2021), TEC facilitates modernisation, simplification and more flexible channels of internal and external communication and interaction. The adoption of MI, such as the decentralised organisational structure, motivates lower-level employees to be more involved in the decisions and actions to implement new technologies, facilitating their integration and diffusion in the company (Giotopoulos et al, 2017).…”

“…The adoption of innovation in knowledge-intensive firms may start in management (Michalakopoulou et al , 2021) since better managed companies increase their ability to innovate, which will improve their profitability (Nemlioglu and Mallick, 2021). Management innovation (MI) is a type of social and people-oriented innovation (Janka et al , 2020) and involves management practices, processes and structures designed to further organisational goals (Birkinshaw et al , 2008; Vaccaro et al , 2012).…”

“…In intensive knowledge firms, TEC aims to increase efficiency, minimising work replication and standardisation procedures involving some degree of repetition (Michalakopoulou et al , 2021). TEC improves the effectiveness and efficiency of innovation in the provision of services, and it contributes to innovation in customer interaction (Ryu and Lee, 2016).…”