Improving professional service operations:action research in a law firm

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how action research-based interventions can effect change in a complex and challenging professional service environment (Lewis and Brown, 2012). This paper presents a successful way to do this. First, by eliciting factors for change driven by deregulation in the United Kingdom’s (UK) legal service sector (Falconer, 2005). Second, by designing and implementing context-sensitive change in a selected legal service firm. Design/methodology/approach: This research adopts a participatory action research methodology involving the use of systems thinking (namely the PrOH modelling methodology) to design suitable interventions and catalyse change. Findings: This study has generated new knowledge on three fronts–to the legal service operations, to methodology and to the intellectual framework used for abductive reasoning (Checkland and Poulter, 2006). Lessons are transferable to wider professional service operations research. Findings indicate, despite traditional challenges of delivering typical professional services, there is potential for rationalising processes and service delivery commodification, mainly in the low volume, high variety legal service typology (Silvestro et al., 1992). Research limitations/implications: This research uses data from an in-depth study of a single organisation. Practical implications: This research helped legal service professionals to improve overall efficiency and effectiveness and create new management tools. Social implications: This research could help improve legal service operations and make them more accessible. Originality/value: This research applies a novel, systems thinking based methodology for the first time in a complex professional service operations environment leading to three-fold contributions in the areas of practice, theory and methodology. The paper uses a change management framework (the Change Kaleidoscope), a soft systems methodology (PrOH modelling) and applies these to legal services.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-10-2020-0696
Divisions: College of Business and Social Sciences > Aston Business School > Operations & Information Management
College of Business and Social Sciences > Aston Business School
Additional Information: This author accepted manuscript is deposited under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC) licence. This means that anyone may distribute, adapt, and build upon the work for non-commercial purposes, subject to full attribution. If you wish to use this manuscript for commercial purposes, please contact permissions@emerald.com. Funding: This work was supported by the Innovate UK [KTP008633].
Uncontrolled Keywords: Action research,Change management,Legal service,Professional service firms,Professional service operations management,Soft systems methodology,Decision Sciences(all),Strategy and Management,Management of Technology and Innovation
Publication ISSN: 1758-6593
Last Modified: 29 Mar 2024 08:18
Date Deposited: 11 Jun 2021 08:04
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: https://www.eme ... -0696/full/html (Publisher URL)
http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2021-08-19
Published Online Date: 2021-06-11
Accepted Date: 2021-05-17
Authors: Balthu, Krishna (ORCID Profile 0000-0001-9468-7541)
Clegg, Ben (ORCID Profile 0000-0001-7506-5237)

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