IBS Lunchtime Research Seminar - Opening An Umbrella: How African Law Firms Achieved The Blending With International Competition

You are cordially invited to attend an International Business and Strategy Departmental Research Meeting, during which there will be a presentation by Professor Johann Fortwengal, Kings College London. A reminder that attendance for IBS (full time, research oriented) staff and full-time students is compulsory, and where possible, must be in person. Individuals unable to attend in person, due to legitimate reasons will be provided a Teams link on request. Non-IBS staff are welcome to attend. If you have not received the email invite please email Angie Clark

Please join us in Room 108, Henley Business School.

Please make sure you let me know in advance if you intend to attend in person so that the correct amount of catering is booked.

Date: Wednesday 7th October 2026, HBS Room 108

Time: 13.00 - 14.30

Abstract:

The international business (IB) literature has long been interested in how firms from emerging markets can overcome the liability of origin they face when competing with international peers. A seminal finding is that these firms tend to shed the sources of their liability, for example, by adopting global standards and templates. Our study of African law firms yielded a counterintuitive response: rather than seeking to shed their African identity, the law firms we studied embraced it. Intrigued by this observation, we set out to study the market for legal services in three key jurisdictions: South Africa, Kenya, and Mauritius. Based on a qualitative, longitudinal, embedded case study, we revealed the process through which initially crisp boundaries between local and international law firms became fuzzy—ultimately resulting in the formation of an umbrella category including both local and international firms. At the heart of the process are individual firm-level activities that aggregate to produce more collective effects via recategorization. Based on our findings, we articulate a process theory of how the blending between local and international firms evolves. Mobilizing the categories framework from organization theory, our insights contribute to the IB literature by theorizing the evolution of an umbrella category spanning both local and international firms, with important implications for some core constructs in our field.