What Determines the Balance Between Insourcing and Outsourcing of Legal Services? / An Empirical Analysis of Monitoring in CoCos

(1) What Determines the Balance Between Insourcing and Outsourcing of Legal Services? Evidence From Fortune 500 Companies, Mari Sako, Professor of Management Studies, University of Oxford

This paper builds on recent research in plural sourcing by identifying two determinants of how firms strike an optimal make-buy balance: resource co-specialization and supplier portfolio selection. We contribute new insights on firm boundaries by fully exploring the implications of a recent move towards synthesizing the capabilities and transaction cost logics for plural sourcing. Analyses of inhouse lawyers at, and law firms doing work for, Fortune 500 firms provide evidence that firms tilt the balance in favor of ‘make’ whenever opportunities for resource co-specialization exist, and in favor of ‘buy’ when they can reduce contracting costs by selecting a concentrated portfolio of suppliers with broad capabilities. (Click here to view paper).

(2) An Empirical Analysis of Monitoring in CoCos, Ayowande McCunn, DPhil Law, University of Oxford

This paper will present preliminary empirical data about the contingent convertible (CoCo) market. The purpose of the paper is threefold: first, to outline the various justifications for banks issuing CoCos, second, to determine whether these justifications are consistent with market data, and, third, to develop new theories to explain deviations from standard justifications.