Retail Marketing Channel Franchise Failure

Abstract

The retail franchising channel is significant and growing rapidly in the U.S., U.K. and other countries. This paper presents a new retail strategic management perspective and provides new, more reliable U.S. longitudinal retail franchise government furnished data, covering over 800 franchise systems and over 250,000 franchise units.

A strategic management failure perspective and more accurate retail franchisee channel failure data facilitate understanding and mitigating failure. Retail franchisee channel failure is an important topic that merits further research and franchise system management attention.     

我国中餐业特许经营的问题与管理对策

特许经营是中餐业经营的新方法。这种方法极大地满足了顾客的需求 ,促进了我国中餐业的发展。可以预言 ,随着我国经济的发展 ,中餐业特许经营将成为我国 2 1世纪主要的经营方式 ,将对我国经济和社会做出巨大的贡献。目前我国中餐业特许经营出现了一些问题和困惑 ,阻碍了其快速发展 ,我们必须认真对待和解决。同时应重视整合我国中餐资源 ,加强宏观管理 ,使我国中餐业特许经营不断发展和壮大。     

Franchisors' disclosure duty: market transparency and franchisee protection

The franchisee is usually the most vulnerable part of the franchise relationship, and should therefore receive greater protection from the legal framework. In this regard, the franchisor's pre-contractual disclosure duty has evolved in its legal status. Whereas its original purpose was to ensure transparency in the market, it now serves to protect the franchisee. In this paper, we compare the franchisor's obligations established by the legal framework in Spain with those set out in the Model Law drawn up by The International Institute for the Unification of Private Law.     

Benefits of Inner Strength for Franchise System Expansion

For every franchise system, making the leap from the unknown to the common place requires a strategic plan for growth. The exogenous market perspective holds that evaluating market conditions is central to defining promising outlet locations as there are direct economic effects on performance. The endogenous firm perspective and the social network approach together provide an inner strength perspective on interconnected firms; this perspective holds that access to resources offered at a certain spot determines site attractiveness, rather than location-specific market factors. Using a sample of 201 German franchisees, this study tests hypotheses that explore which perspective dominates location decisions in practice and clarify the relevance of the decisive criteria for outlet performance. Results show that location decisions rely on both perspectives, yet franchisee performance depends more on inner strength factors. We also find that expansion is better served by following a geographically dispersed cluster approach than by growing steadily from a baseline site.     

Does franchising pay? Evidence from the restaurant industry

Franchising has taken a prominent position in service industries for several decades, but little is known about how franchising affects financial performance. Thus, we addressed the question of whether chains that franchise to some extent outperform those that are wholly owned. Then, among chains that franchise, we also addressed the question of whether more franchising is better – that is, whether the proportion of a chain's units that are franchised is associated with superior financial performance. To answer these questions, our study first compares the risk-adjusted performance of franchising vs. non-franchising restaurant firms. Second, it investigates the relationship between franchising propensity and firm financial performance. We considered five different measures of firm financial performance: the Sharpe ratio, the Treynor ratio, the Jensen index, the Sortino ratio, and the upside potential ratio. On comparison of franchising and wholly owned firms, all five measures indicated that franchising firms outperformed their non-franchising counterparts. When we focussed on just the franchising firms, however, the results were less clear. Among firms that franchise, the franchising–performance relationship was positive and significant only with respect to the Jensen index. Thus, we provide very robust evidence that franchising pays – that is, that some franchising is good – but among firms that franchise, it is unclear whether more franchising is better.     

Conceptualizing the Franchise System Quality (FSQ) Matrix

Abstract

This empirical study provides some exploratory evidence to the proposed Franchise System Quality (FSQ) Matrix. This is the first study to investigate how franchisees perceive the importance and adequacy of the franchisor-provided services within a franchise system. Using these two dimensions as anchors, the FSQ matrix is conceptualized with four distinct profiles. The analysis of survey responses of 185 Taiwanese franchisees strongly confirms the validity of the four-cell matrix indicating significant differences between them. The results also yield a highly significant comparison between system quality permutations with franchisee performance variables and behavioral perceptions. These results show that franchisees with better performances are worthy of more support and assistance from franchisors. Those franchisees that are identified with highperceived importance of the FSQ matrix have a stronger desire for autonomy.     

Performance in franchising: the effects of different management styles

Various theoretical approaches uphold the relevance of the relationship between the form of management and performance. Different management styles influence the relationships of agencies [Jensen, M.C. (1998). Foundations of organizational strategy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press], the cost of governing transactions [Williamson, O.E. (1985). The economics institutions of capitalism: Firms, markets, relational contracting. New York, NY: Free Press], and the allocation of resources between the exploitation and exploration of activities [March, J.G. (1991). Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning. Organization Science, 2(1), 71–87], and this is manifested in firm performance. In light of these assumptions, this article presents an empirical verification of the relationship between the management of franchises and their performance, examining how different styles of management on the part of franchisers over their franchisees have significant effects on the growth and profits of franchiser firms.     

我国特许经营存在的问题及发展思路探析

目前 ,特许经营在我国的发展前景十分看好 ,我国许多大型连锁企业已具备了发展特许经营的能力。相对于欧美、日本等发达国家来说 ,我国特许经营企业的发展有很大差距 ,存在的问题也是林林总总。而特许经营作为一种“双赢”策略 ,能够有效地实现规模扩张 ,降低成本和商品价格 ,提高市场竞争能力 ,比较适合我国企业发展的现状。因此 ,我们应在广泛借鉴西方发达国家先进经验的基础上 ,理顺发展有中国特色特许经营的基本思路。     

股权分置改革对上市公司绩效影响的实证研究

股权分置是我国经济转型和资本市场发展过程中的特殊现象。股权分置改革的完成导致上市公司股权结构发生了重大变化,直接影响了上市公司的治理效率和业绩水平。本文对上市公司股权构成及股权集中度对公司绩效影响的实证研究表明：股权分置改革有效地降低了股权结构中各因素对公司绩效的负向影响,同时加强了股权集中度对公司治理绩效的正向作用,使得上市公司的治理绩效得到明显提升。