Professional service firms, like law firms, need to comply with multiple demands on how they should operate and what they should deliver. Society demands transparency and accountability. Legal professionals who work in professional service firms ask for autonomy and discretion. The clients of professional service firms request not only cost efficiency but also short delivery times and customised service. Professional service firms attempt to adapt to these multiple, and often conflicting, demands by adopting new approaches to work.
Our study illustrates that adopting new work approaches does not always proceed in a smooth manner. Instead, there can be resistance, which ultimately jeopardises the integration of these new approaches into the organisation. We explain how such resistance can happen because of threats to professional identities. Continue reading here.
