New Practice Development in PSFs Tim Morris, Director of Executive Education and Professor of Management Studies Department at the Oxford Said Business School, is a leading scholar in the field of knowledge sharing in professional service firms. Just refer to the bibliography below for his contributions to the field.
So, when Professor Morris publishes a new paper on practice development in PSFs, I take notice. And so should legal marketers.
In this most recent work, the authors outline a process model of how professional firms innovate by creating new practices. They identify four elements of new practices:
partner agency (motivation to climb to partnership/desire for reputation as an expert)
differentiated knowledge base ("cognitive capital")
internal turf creation ("political capital")
organizational support (time and people allows for cross-selling)
Taken one at a time, partner agency is the desire ("personal initiative", "entrepreneurial spirit", "desire to build an empire") to become a partner, and the efforts one makes in terms of "personal brand-building".
A differentiated knowledge base requires a partner to create a new and distinctive corpus of professional knowledge that can lead to new domains of activity with current or prospective clients. Using consistent "processes"and "methodologies", partners must go beyond standard legal knowledge (a move from "gospel" to "general approach" to "thought starter" to "differentiated knowledge" -- in other words, create new knowledge to solve client problems, now and in the future.
In tandem with building a new and differentiated knowledge base, practice group leaders must have personal political power, i.e., own their turf internally. "Owning" clients was seen as a critical resource in creating turf for a new practice because partners were allowed a degree of control by brokering the sale of various of the firm's services to a client."
Also in tandem with building differentiated knowledge, the partner must secure organizational support. Partners must be able to obtain personnel and time resources (e.g., borrowing unassigned junior associates, lifting some of the normal partnership administrative duties, relaxing revenue targets).
The four PSFs studied (none of which included a law firm) all stated they "piggy-backed" on to existingg clients and projects in order to 'road test' their new service." "This form of 'cross-selling' . . . (and "test-marketing") . . . of the new practice's service to a client . . . within the firm was a tangible form of organizational support."
The authors conclude that if any of these four elements are lacking, then the PSF will be seriously compromised in its attempt at setting up a new practice.
Tim Morris bibliography:
(1) Archetype Change in Professional Organizations: Survey Evidence from Large Law Firms, Ashly Pinnington & Timothy Morris (British Journal of Management, vol. 14:no, 1, March 2003)
(2) Exploring Heterogeneity in Professional Service Firms: Comparing the Nature of Professional Work and Knowledge Flows in Engineering Consulting and Law by Timothy Morris and P. Anand (3rd Oxford Conference on Knowledge Intensive Firms, 2002)
(3) Asserting Property Rights: Knowledge Codification in the Professional Service Firm by Timothy Morris (Human Relations, vol. 54:no. 7, 2001)
(4) Knowledge Types and Knowledge Flows in Multinational Professional Service Firms by Timothy Morris & Namrata Malhotra (EGOS Conference, Lyon, France 2001)
(5) Knowledge Creation in Professional Service Firms by Timothy Morris and P. Anand (Academy of Management Conference, Chicago 1999)
(6) Codification and Control: Knowledge Management in the Professional Service Firm by Timothy Morris (Managing Knowledge Intensive Firms Workshop, St. Anne's College, Oxford University 1999)
(7) Holes and Covers in Knowledge Work by Timothy Morris & P. Anand (Seminar on Knowledge in Professional Service Firms University of Alberta, Canada 1999)
(8) When Knowledge is Power: Knowledge Transfer and Mergers and Acquisitions Between Professional Services Firms by Laura Empson & Timothy Morris (Conference on Knowledge/ Power Shifts, Warwick University 1997)
(9) Organization and Expertise: Knowledge Bases and the Management of the Professional Service Firm by Laura Empson & Timothy Morris (British Academy of Management Conference, UK 1996)
