Plural form tends to be the most popular organization form in retail and service networks compared to purely franchised or purely company-owned systems. In the first part, this paper exposes the ...evolution of researchers’ state of mind from the way of thinking which considers franchising and ownership as substitutable organizational forms to theories which analyze the utilization of both franchise and company arrangements. The paper describes the main attempts to explain theoretically the superiority of plural forms. In the second part, the paper discusses the hypothesis which says that there is a relationship between the organizational form of the chain and its efficiency score. It is demonstrated through the application of a data envelopment analysis method on French hotel chains that plural form networks are in average more efficient than strictly franchised and wholly owned chains. The Kruskal–Wallis test which is a distribution-free rank-order statistic is used to statistically verify this relationship. The result does not permit the rejection of the null hypothesis regarding whether an organizational form is more efficient than another one. Hence, this paper opens prospects for researches aiming at testing the organizational form effect on different samples and with other methods.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Franchisors' long-term viability is tied to the ongoing operations of their franchisees. To ensure the ongoing performance of franchisees, franchisors deploy multiple governance mechanisms. This ...study assesses how governance mechanisms deployed to enhance franchisee ability (via selection and socialization) and motivation (via incentives and monitoring) impact franchisee bankruptcy. The authors examine the individual and joint effects of deploying governance mechanisms that share the same underlying objective, namely, to enhance franchisee ability and motivation. They also assess how motivation-inducing mechanisms may serve to counter the motivation-dampening effect of an increased royalty rate. Relying on data from multiple archival sources, the authors identify all bankruptcy filings by franchisees and their franchisors across 1,115 franchise systems over a 13-year observation window. Their findings document a positive and significant relationship between franchisee and franchisor bankruptcy. They also find main and interaction effects of the ability- and motivation-influencing governance mechanisms on the likelihood of franchisee bankruptcy, and the existence of significant bankruptcy spillovers among franchisees within the same franchise system. They discuss implications for franchise theory and management.
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BFBNIB, INZLJ, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
The purpose of this research is to investigate the interplay among organizational practice, the adoption of a management philosophy and individual outcomes in a mission-driven multinational education ...franchise system. A sample of 1,700 potential survey participants throughout the focal organization in both Canada and the United States was used, including 1,282 franchisees and 418 employees. A total of 152 responses were received, including 83 responses from franchisees and 69 responses from corporate employees. The findings of the study provide evidence that the adoption of a management philosophy will mediate the relationships between a philosophy-oriented organizational practice and the individual outcomes in the context of a mission-driven education industry franchise–franchisor setup in North America. One obvious limitation is that the data collection was conducted from within a single organization. The findings of the study are specific to the North American region. Hence, the generalizability is limited. The article builds upon Wang’s ( Journal of Business, 2011, Ethics, 101(1), 111–126) study by adding new measures. The empirical evidence of the study confirms that it is possible for a franchise organization to utilize corporate mission and management philosophy to govern a high level of unity between all stakeholders in a franchise system.
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NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract The purpose of this study was to design and validate the franchisor growth model in Iran insurance industry. To achieve this goal, descriptive-analytical research method ...and structural equation modeling were used. The statistical population included all managers of Alborz insurance company and its outlets in East Azarbaijan province that entire population was selected using census method as study sample (120 individuals). The results showed that 30 drivers on eight principle components explain 74.32% of the variance of franchisor growth drivers in Iran's insurance industry, and based on the model of franchisor growth drivers, characteristics of insurance business through the franchise characteristics, the franchise system dispersion and the brand reputation, and then through the reliability, knowledge sharing, and conflict management affect the intention to continue cooperation.Introduction Franchise as a business model, has many economic and social effects such as job creation, economic modernization, and entrepreneurship development (Naatu & Alon, 2019: 738). The franchise has played an important role in rebuilding the economies of various countries with its significant growth in the post-epidemic period. Based on the esimates of the International Franchise Association (IFA), franchise business returns in 2022 will improve by 4.9 percent to $826.6 billion and their share of GDP in the US economy will be 3 percent (International Franchise Association, 2022). Although franchise in practice, has shown its impact on the prospects of various businesses; however, there are some fundamental gaps in researchers and executive managers' perceptions about the force governing and drivers of franchise performance, as research efforts to identify the relationship between drivers and franchisor growth have led to conflicting evidence (Kang, Asare, Brashear-Alejandro, & Li, 2018: 196). Furthermore, the causal relationships between franchise growth drivers in different industries are not well understood (Kang et al., 2018: 202). Given that there are fundamental differences between the characteristics of business in different industries; it is expected that the drivers of franchise growth in each industry will be different and different causal relationships will be established between them. Due to the limited research on franchise in the insurance industry, the purpose of this study was allocated to design and validate the model of franchisor growth drivers in the Iranian insurance industry.Case Study Alborz insurance company and its outlets in East Azarbaijan province were studied in the present study.Materials and Methods Descriptive-analytical research method and structural equation modeling were used in this present study. The statistical population included all the managers of Alborz Insurance Company and the managers of the representative offices of this company in East Azarbaijan province, and due to the limited number of the statistical population, the census method was used to select the participants (N = 120). Initially, based on the content analysis of published articles, 34 drivers were identified and the initial questionnaire was designed. After examining the content validity, the importance of the items was evaluated based on the collected data using two decision tree algorithms (CRT and C5.0), and four items were removed. Then we used exploratory factor analysis to determine the principle components of growth drivers, DEMATEL technique to develop a theoretical framework of causal relationships between eight components of growth drivers based on the perspectives of 12 academic experts and experienced managers of insurance companies (management experience over 10 years) and structural equation modeling to validate the developed model.Results and DiscussionExploratory factor analysis showed that 30 drivers on eight principle components consist of franchise system dispersion (16.64%), brand reputation (10.96%), reliability (9.85%), knowledge sharing (9.57%), conflict management (7.98%), intention to continue cooperation (7.81%), franchise characteristics (7.33%) and business characteristics (4.17%) explained 74.32% of variance of the franchisor growth drivers in Iran insurance industry. In the present study, the franchise system dispersion represented three indicators of geographical dispersion, overseas activity and number of outlet, which played the most important role in explaining the franchisor growth in the insurance industry. In other words, the dispersion of the franchise system was the main driver of franchisor growth in Iran insurance industry. These findings are consistent with the evidence reported by Julian & Castrogiovanni (1995) and Dant et al. (2007) explaining franchisor growth based on geographical distribution and number of oulet (Dant et al., 2007: 169; Julian & Castrogiovanni, 1995). : 2). However, outlet growth rate, which covers the growth speed of the franchisor (annual increase in the number of outlet), in the present study, based on the results of decision tree algorithms, did not play a role in franchisor growth in the insurance industry, which is inconsistent with the conclusion of Castrogiovanni and Justice (2002) and Ongo (2007) who have introduced the outlet growth rate as a more appropriate indicator for the franchisor growth (Elango, 2007: 179; Castrogiovanni & Justis, 2002: 98; Shane 2001; 136). The reason for these discrepancies may be related to the different characteristics of industries and also the different characteristics of the studied markets.In the present study, to design a model of causal relationships between franchisor growth drivers, first the DEMATEL technique and expert opinions were used to develop a preliminary theoretical model, then the validity of the model were tested based on experimental data and structural equations modeling. The results showed that the structural relationships proposed in the initial theoretical model are supported based on experimental data (χ2 = 635.33, p = 0.051, SRMR = 0.063, CFI = 0.91, IFI = 0.89). In this model, the coefficients of all paths were positive and the component of business characteristics was the starting factor in the model, whereas the component of the intention to continue cooperation appeared as the final outcome. In the model of franchisor growth drivers in Iran insurance industry, the component of insurance business characteristics through franchise characteristics, franchise system dispersion and brand reputation, and then through reliability, knowledge sharing, conflict management impacted the intention to continue cooperation.ConclusionThe model of franchisor growth drivers in Iran insurance industry with eight components of franchise system dispersion, brand reputation, reliability, knowledge sharing, conflict management, intention to continue cooperation, franchise characteristics, and business characteristics is a valid model for recognizing franchisor growth drivers and causal relationships among franchisor growth drivers in Iran insurance industry. Therefore, the use of identified drivers and attention to the pattern of causal relationships between their main components can be used for the growth and development of franchise systems in the Iran insurance industry.
•Manufacturers combine retail channel with online channel to address a wider range of customers.•Consider dual-channel supply chain under price and delivery-time dependent stochastic customer ...demand.•Demand uncertainty requires inventories that affect the optimal price and lead time.•Effect of customers’ channel preference on the optimal operation of dual-channel supply chains.•Centralized and decentralized decisions for known distribution and distribution-free approach.
Several leading manufacturers recently combined the traditional retail channel with a direct online channel to reach a wider range of customers. We examine such a dual-channel supply chain under price and delivery-time dependent stochastic customer demand. We consider five decision variables, the price and order quantity for both the retail and the online channels and the delivery time for the online channel. Uncertainty frequently arises in both retail and online channels and so additional inventory management is required to control shortage or overstock and that has an effect on the optimal order quantity, price, and lead time. We developed mathematical models with the profit maximization motive. We analyze both centralized and decentralized systems for unknown distribution function of the random variables through a distribution-free approach and also for known distribution function. We examine the effect of delivery lead time and customers’ channel preference on the optimal operation. For supply chain coordination a hybrid all-unit quantity discount along a franchise fee contract is used. Moreover, we use the generalized asymmetric Nash bargaining for surplus profit distribution. A numerical example illustrates the findings of the model and the managerial insights are summarized for centralized, decentralized, and coordinated scenarios.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The purpose of this study is to provide a way of pursuing a balanced profitability between franchisors and franchisees leading to the sustainability in franchising. Based on a belief that the ...formation of brand-centric relationship is vital for the success of franchising system, we constructed a model that examines the relationships between marketing decisions, brand equity, and the financial performances of franchisors and franchisees. We used actual data of the Korean franchise chains, including measures of channel intensity and advertising and promotional activities as franchise marketing decisions as well as the profitability of franchisors and franchisees for the analysis. The results of analysis show that while advertising and promotion expenditure has a positive impact on the performances of both franchisors and franchisees, the number of stores does not influence them in the same way. This indicates that their interests may conflict. This study suggests that marketing decisions can be utilized as a means of achieving balanced profitability that would benefit the sustainability in franchising between franchisors and franchisees.
PurposeThe aim of this research work is to consider the relevance of corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related social media communication in franchise networks, with a focus on the perceptions ...and expectations of franchisors and franchisees and franchisors and franchisees' customers.Design/methodology/approachThree studies were conducted as part of this research: two qualitative studies with franchisors and franchisees in the first instance (N = 39) and franchisors and franchisees' customers in the second instance (N = 13), as well as an online ethnographic study of customer reactions (N = 871) to different CSR communications from the networks already interviewed.FindingsThe results show that CSR communication remains very important in a context characterised by a growing interest in CSR commitment in companies in general and in franchise networks in particular. However, different conditions of effectiveness of this CSR communication have been identified. The different conditions can avoid CSR's detrimental effects and increase CSR's credibility.Practical implicationsIn franchise networks, the task of communicating about CSR is complex. This requires the integration of franchisees, which are very important to CSR's success. CSR communication also requires integrating customers by studying their expectations at this level. This study gives the basic keys to the success of CSR communication in franchise networks, from the point of view of franchisors, franchisees and the customers of franchisors and franchisees.Originality/valueThis study focusses on a topic that has received very little attention, particularly in franchise networks. The various studies conducted allow us to better understand the particularities of CSR communication, particularly in the context of tripartite franchisor–franchisee–customer relations.
Due to increasing competition, creating and enhancing franchisee patronage behaviors are critical elements in the food franchise industry. Franchise brand-related characteristics are known to ...influence franchisees' evaluations. Thus, this paper examines the antecedents of franchisees' perceived value, which leads to positive behaviors in the food franchise sector.
A research model is proposed to describe relationships among different types of functional company characteristics (i.e. quality, innovation, and price) on perceived value and behavioral intentions, and impact of operational involvement in the context of franchisees. A quantitative approach was leveraged to collect 266 usable online questionnaires, together with SmartPLS to analyze the measurement model and proposed hypotheses.
Results show that perceived quality on the part of franchisees is the most significant determinant of perceived value, followed by perceived innovation and price. Also, the impact of perceived value on franchisees' intentions - including continuous and word-of-mouth intentions - is supported. Last, the role of operational involvement (i.e. duration and number of food franchise operations) in perceived value is examined.
To add to the limited research in the behaviors of franchisees, this study provides useful insights to achieve sustainable growth in the franchise brand context.
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BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Implementation of pharmacists services provided in all pharmacies must meet the standard of pharmaceutical services guidelines, including the provision of drug information. The study aims to compare ...the patient's perception of drug counseling services by pharmacy staff based on the type of pharmacy ownership (franchise/non-franchise) in Semarang. This research is an observational study with a cross-sectional design. Samples were taken of 286 respondents with a quota sampling technique. Data were collected using an online google form questionnaire tested for validity and reliability. The statistical analysis results used the Mann-Whitney test with a p-value of <0.05. There is no significant difference between the patient's perception of the drug information counseling services by pharmacy staff at the franchise or non-franchise pharmacies in Semarang with a p-value of 0.264. This study also found that the standard information given by pharmacy staff is healthy eating and education about antibiotics used in the common cold. In addition, only 55% of respondents were sure that the pharmacy staff who gave them drug information in pharmacies was a pharmacist. Consequently, we humbly recommend that pharmacists consistently wear their pharmacist identification.
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