The Law & Management approach refers to a body of research, which has been the subject of publications since the early 2000s mainly in Europe and the United States. It focuses on the ways in which companies can best profit from legal resources. The common denominator of this approach is that it seeks to show that the law is not merely a constraint weighing down Business but that it can also be used as a tool for creating opportunities and allowing economic actors to differentiate themselves from their competitors. This approach focuses on the potential for the law to become a factor which influences the success and development of companies according to the capacity of company actors – mainly their managers and the lawyers who advise them – to use law as a source of advantage in economic life.

In order to encourage research and work in this area, the Law and Management project, which gathers practitioners and academics in partnership with the French Association of Law and Management (AFD&M), intends to publish a book introducing this field by presenting the existing literature on the topic.

The L&M project is open to all researchers, whether they are practitioners or academics[1].

 

Suggested topics

Chapters may be related to one of the following key topics.

General topics

• Law as a science of organization
• Transposition of Porter’s 5 forces model to law 
• Transposition of the Resources and Capabilities approach to law 
• Legal culture and internal legal organization
• Role of law in the value chain
• Institutional and Regulatory entrepreneurship
  
• Ethical analysis in legal strategies
• Management of non-legal risks through law and on the management of legal risks
• Application of game theory and other strategies to contract, company and public-private partnership law 
• Preventive law, Proactive Law, Comprehensive law, Collaborative law
  
• The methodologies of legal innovation
• Legal communication
• Decision tools applied to law

Topics for which specific subject knowledge of the area would be an asset

• Non-market strategies
• Tax and legal planning (especially from a methodological point of view)
• Sociology of the legal ecosystem of firms
• Tetranormalization 
• Behavioural approaches to taxation
• Legal psychology of economic actors (excluding taxation)
• Dissemination of legal innovations produced by companies (such as legal arrangements or tax optimization strategies)

 

On request, the editors can provide a description of each of these subjects and an indicative bibliography. The authors will naturally be asked to complete these initial bibliographies.

It is also possible to propose to the Editors and the Scientific Board other authors or topics, which may be approved if they prove to make a significant contribution to the Law & Management approach.

Writing instructions

In order to understand what the concerns of the Law & Management approach are, it is essential to read the following articles:

• Bagley, C.E. (2008) “Winning Legally : the Value of Legal Astuteness”, Academy of Management Review, 33(2), 378
• Bird, R. C. (2008), “Pathways of legal strategy”, Stanford Journal of Law, Business & Finance, 14:1.

Our model is the Oxford Handbook series which offers authoritative and up-to-date surveys of original research.

It is crucial that authors bear in mind that:

1) topics should be treated with a systematic focus on the applications and implications for business of the legal or legal-managerial techniques studied.

For example, the phenomenon of the diffusion of legal innovations may concern not only companies but also other social actors. The diffusion of a legal innovation such as the extension of the institution of marriage to same-sex couples, while of fundamental importance in our society, is not relevant to the Law & Management approach. On the other hand, the development of effective legal arrangements adopted by pioneering companies before they are copied by others is. This innovation allows such companies, at least for a certain period, to gain a competitive advantage and therefore has a place in the Law & Management approach.

2) the book aims at presenting the existing literature for persons who want to learn about Law & Management. Therefore, at least 50% of the article should be devoted to a presentation of the literature.

 

The document must be between 10 and 15 pages in Word, font-size12, Times New Roman, without line spacing. It must also be in line with the editorial instructions that will be sent to the authors. The insertion of diagrams or graphs for illustrative purposes is strongly encouraged. The bibliography cited should be attached to the chapter submitted.

Procedure

Practitioners and academics must express their interest in a Topic to reserve one of the remaining topics or to propose a new topic. The deadline for submission of manuscripts is 15 July 2022.

Students interested in participating in this project are invited to contact the project organizers (massona@essec.edu) when selecting their thesis/dissertation topic to ensure that the topic is still available and to discuss a writing schedule. In principle, a mid-term meeting (around March 2022) will be scheduled to ensure that the participants have understood the process and to check on the progress of their chapters.

Upon submission of a chapter, and independently of the evaluation of the thesis or dissertation by the institution in which the work is registered, the Editors and the Scientific Board will read it and assess its suitability for publication. The Editors and the Scientific Board may also ask the authors to make any changes they consider necessary.

Editors

• Antoine Masson, Associate Expert, ESSEC Business School (editor in chief)
• Hugues Bouthinon-Dumas, Professor, ESSEC Business School (co-editor)
• Gregory Voss, Professor, TBS Business School (co-editor)
• Jean-Michel Do Carmo Silva, Professor, Grenoble Ecole de Management (co-editor)

 

Scientific Board

• Constance Bagley, guest Professor Copenhagen Business School, CBS LAW
• Gerlinde Berger-Walliser, Professor, University of Connecticut
• Robert Bird, Professor, University of Connecticut
• Pascal Corbel, Professor, Paris-Saclay University
• Anne-Sophie Courtier, Professor, NEOMA Business School
• Marc Fréchet, Professor, IAE de Saint-Etienne
• Sandrine Henneron, Professor, NEOMA Business School
• Fabrice Lumineau, Professor, HKU Business School
• Helena Haapio, Professor, University of Lapland

 

[1] Besides, the editors encourage students enrolled in Business Schools and/or “Law and Management” programs, young graduates and PhD candidates to participate. In that regard, the completion of a chapter of the book could constitute a chapter of, or even the subject of, a thesis or a dissertation that they have to write. Please note that the proposed topics may be part of a more general dissertation or thesis. In that case, only the part dealing with the relevant topics will be considered for publication.