This dissertation presents an insider action research (AR) project in a mid-sized German law firm. The research created positive organizational change in the firm by (i) producing an explicit generic decision-making strategy applicable to the local context based on evidence based management (EBM), and (ii) the implementation of a new practice area, 'business restructuring services', through the application of this generic strategy. The research contributes to the existing literature on EBM, the concept of 'causal models', providing a link between academic knowledge described by generalized causal models and local, context-dependent interventions based on a localized causal model. The study seeks to make explicit how the concept of EBM can be applied in a real-world context and how its limitations, namely in dealing with resource constraints, conflicting stakeholder positions and ethical constraints, can be approached. It provides an example of how an explicit design methodology rooted in a localized causal model was used to create the new practice area based on the analysis of evidence from academic knowledge and the local context. Additionally, the dissertation shows how finding on different levels of analysis, such as academic knowledge, local context and organizational consensus may be integrated and presented. The research argues for the treatment of the literature as an important but unprivileged type of evidence used in the creation of causal models. The research contributes to the AR literature by outlining the challenges to a participatory approach in the cultural context of a business law firm and delineating a model for creating change in this environment.

This thesis explores whether a specific group of large EU law firms exhibited multiple common behaviours regarding their EU geographies between 1998 and 2009. These potentially common behaviours included their preferences for trading in certain EU locations, their usage of law firm alliances, and the specific reasons why they opened or closed EU branch offices. If my hypothesis is confirmed, this may indicate that certain aspects of large law firm geography are predictable – a finding potentially of interest to various stakeholders globally, including legal regulators, academics and law firms. In testing my hypothesis, I have drawn on research conducted by the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) Research Network to assist me. Between 1999 and 2010, the GaWC published seven research papers exploring the geographies of large US and UK law firms. Several of the GaWC’s observations arising from these studies were evidence-based; others were speculative – including a novel approach for explaining legal practice branch office change, not adopted in research conducted previously or subsequently. By distilling the GaWC’s key observations these papers into a series of “sub-hypotheses”, I been able to test whether the geographical behaviours of my novel cohort of large EU law firms reflect those suggested by the GaWC. The more the GaWC’s suggested behaviours are observed among my cohort, the more my hypothesis will be supported. In conducting this exercise, I will additionally evaluate the extent to which the GaWC’s research has aided our understanding of large EU law firm geography. Ultimately, my findings broadly support most of the GaWC’s observations, notwithstanding our cohort differences and the speculative nature of several of the GaWC’s propositions. My investigation has also allowed me to refine several of the GaWC’s observations regarding commonly-observable large law firm geographical behaviours, while also addressing a key omission from the group’s research output.

This research explores the relationship between institutional field level change and organisational change. More specifically, the focus of this study centres on the influence which a transition between institutional logics has on an organisation’s identity. Via an in-depth case study of a medium-sized, international commercial law firm, findings suggest that institutional field level change is manifested at the organisational level through the use of signs. Contrary to existing literature which focuses on the presence of a singular organisational strategy as a response to external field level change, this study indicates that multiple organisational strategies can co-exist, as evidenced through the use of signs. To this end, a semiotic analysis of empirical data suggests that evidence of decoupling, hybridisation and substitution can all be found co-existing within one organisation. Moreover, findings indicate that an organisation’s selection of organisational strategy is dependent on the relative proximity of a given sign from the external boundary of the organisation. Significantly, such findings are especially insightful in indicating how organisations make sense of and respond to institutional field level changes in real-time.