Market and partner selection processes in international retail franchising

This paper adopts a qualitative, case study approach to examine the market and partner selection processes of retailers operating internationally via franchising. Despite the increasing prevalence of franchising as an entry mode for international retailers, little research exists that considers how these firms choose franchise markets and franchise partners. The paper proposes a conceptual framework of the market and partner selection process that exhibits opportunistic and strategic behavior. Firms adopting a strategic approach undergo a market screening process before market attractiveness factors ultimately lead to the market selection decision. In the strategic partner selection process that follows, finance, business know-how, local knowledge, a shared understanding of the business and brand, and, ultimately, chemistry between the partners are the key factors influencing partner selection. In the case of an opportunistic approach to market and partner selection, the process reverses, with partner selection directly influencing market selection.     

The Ethical Dimensions of Decision Processes of Employees

The influence of stakeholders, organisational commitment, personal values, goals of the organisation and socio-demographic characteristics of individuals on the ethical dimension of behavioural intentions of employees in various organisations are investigated. The research results show that employees working for the public sector or in educational institutions take more ethical aspects into account than employees working in the "private" sector. The influence of stakeholders and organisational commitment do not significantly affect the ethical behaviour of employees, and only some personal values and goals of the organisation have a significant influence on ethical behaviour. The most significant explanatory factor of ethical decision making seems to be what may be called "stage in the career of the employee": "ethical" employees can be described as young, with a relatively low income, limited work experience and a low level of responsibility in the company.     

International franchise partner selection and chain performance through the lens of organisational learning

This study aims to investigate how international franchisors engage in exploratory and exploitative learning in the partner selection process and the implications for chain performance. Based on an embedded case study of a leading international hotel organisation, the findings reveal that the franchisor attempted a balanced learning approach in response to challenges caused by high cultural distance in international markets. However, the ‘crowd-out’ effect of exploration and exploitation created a ‘tension’: exploration emphasising adaptation to local needs dominated the partner identification stage in country markets, whilst exploitation stressing standardisation and efficiencies dominated the partner decision-making stage at division. As a result, a consistent brand image came at the cost of very cautious international expansion.     

The impact of entry modes on the organisational design of international hotel chains

This paper reports on a study of organisation design within the international hotel chains that simultaneously employ multiple market entry modes. A multiple case study reveals the use of different divisional designs for different types of entry mode within individual chains. These are driven by the desire to maintain strong control over hotel brands. The study concludes that current designs may inhibit the international hotel chains from achieving their organisational potential and recommends that managers look to break down these ‘communities of design’ barriers.     

U.S.-Based Fast-Food Restaurants: Factors Influencing the International Expansion of Franchise Systems

Studies of international franchising are scant but increasing and can be divided into two streams of research: those focusing on environmental predictors of internationalization and those focusing on strategic, firm-level characteristics. Examining the latter category, this study empirically explores a set of firm-level attributes as predictors of decision making on whether firms seek international expansion. Using longitudinal data from Bond's Franchise Guide 2001–2008, we draw on a sample of U.S.-based fast-food franchise systems to test our hypotheses. Specifically, our database is composed of 1,058 observations of 158 chains, and we estimate a semi-parametric logistic model for international franchising. The model contributes to the literature by being the first to examine the nonlinearity of international franchising determinants using agency theory. The results show that (a) bonding, (b) the percentage of franchised units, (c) the number of states within which the system operates, and (d) the provision of area development agreements and sub-franchising significantly contribute to the international expansion of U.S.-based fast-food franchisors.     

Female franchisees; a lost opportunity for franchising sector growth?

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate why female franchisees are under-represented in franchise ownership. A qualitative approach was adopted using a collective, instrumental case study of 30 female franchisees. A number of different types of influences were identified in the literature and then elucidated and assessed. It was found that push and pull factors, work–family life balance, franchising sector characteristics and external influences act as variable incentives and disincentives among female franchisees’ selection of the franchise business model with different levels of risk-taking propensity. The marketing efforts of franchises would be more effective if the way in which the identified influences that impinge on the selection of the franchise business model informed the prospecting of potential female franchisees. A further need is identified for franchises to adjust their recruitment programmes to reflect the variable effect of incentives and disincentives at different levels of capital investment. Limited research specifically examines the selection of the franchise business model by female franchisees with various levels of risk-taking propensity and identifies the nature of influences that act as incentives and/or disincentives on that selection decision.     

基于三阶段综合评判法的虚拟企业伙伴选择研究

选择正确的合作伙伴是组建虚拟企业的关键因素之一,而要保证伙伴选择过程中决策的正确性,就必须采用合理的合作伙伴选择方法。从虚拟企业建模角度出发,提出了基于关系理论的定性过滤、基于数据包络的定量筛选、基于综合评判的最优组合确定三阶段虚拟企业伙伴选择模型。     

Effect of newcomer socialisation on organisational commitment,job satisfaction,and turnover intention in the hotel industry

The academic literature features organisational socialisation as playing a crucial role in the early stages of newcomer employment. During this assimilation stage, newcomers adapt to a new workplace more effectively if socialisation is encouraged. It has been found that socialisation minimises the negative effects of unmet expectations on overall organisational effectiveness, including employee turnover – an issue that has become a considerable problem for many hotels. Extending this logic, this study aims to understand socialisation by specifically assessing whether turnover is determined by employees' beliefs about job satisfaction and individual commitment to an organisation and the hotel profession in general. The study of 428 respondents from 61 international tourist hotels in Taiwan implies that social interaction enables organisations to gain, from an increase in commitment to the organisation, job satisfaction and a decrease in newcomers' intent to leave the hotel profession. Two major contributions to the existing literature result (a) commitment to the organisation plays a dominant role in employee turnover intent and (b) job satisfaction is a powerful method of reinforcing individual commitment to the organisation.     

The choice of master international franchising – A modified transaction cost model

This study develops and tests a novel transaction cost model of master international franchising. Based on data from international franchise firms headquartered in six countries, we show that master international franchising is the franchisor’s preferred governance mode under the following conditions: large bilateral franchisor’s and franchisees’ transaction-specific investments, high institutional uncertainty and high behavioral uncertainty. Our model extends the literature by presenting a modified transaction cost model of master international franchising that investigates the bonding effect of bilateral transaction-specific investments and environmental uncertainty as determinants of the franchisor’s choice of international governance mode. In addition, by using primary data from international franchise companies, our study contributes to the transaction cost literature in international business and international franchising that is mainly based on secondary data.     

Exploring the Role of Ownership Structures in the Results of Professional Health Care Franchises from a Multi-Actor Perspective

This paper explores how the ownership structure of professional health care franchises contributes to the achievement of positive results with franchising for the franchisor, the franchisee, professional service provider, and clients. We conducted a comparative embedded case study with three health care franchises in the Netherlands using data from 101 interviews, observations, and document analyses. We show that different ownership structures at the system-level (i.e., plural form, pure franchise, cooperative franchise) and the unit-level (i.e., stand-alone versus fractional, active versus passive, single versus multi-unit) have different effects as perceived by franchisors, franchisees, and professionals. Moreover, we reveal how this variation in experienced effects can be explained by differences in dynamics in regard to management, decision making, control, steering, support, interests, learning, and adaptation. Based on these analyses, we develop new typologies of ownership structures and show how combinations of system-level and unit-level structures can have mutually weakening or strengthening effects.     

A conceptual framework to analyse hospital competitiveness

This article proposes a conceptual framework to analyse hospital competitiveness at the organisational level. Hospital competitiveness, defined as the capacity a hospital has to develop a superior performance that leads it to a position of competitive advantage, may be analysed in three dimensions: organisation, strategic behaviour, and performance. Based on previous studies and on the current structural adjustment in the Portuguese public hospital sector, this article suggests the following categories: legal status, organisational complexity, and resources for the organisation dimension; stakeholders, services and inter-organisational relationships for the strategic behaviour dimension; and type of indicators, efficiency and effectiveness, and benchmarking for the performance dimension. This framework seems to be particularly useful in evaluating Portuguese hospital competitiveness and providing insights for hospitals' managers and public decision makers both from Portugal and other countries.     

Capturing Knightian Advantages of Large Business Organisations Through Group Decision-making Processes

This paper develops an explanation of how large business organisations may achieve advantages of size by virtue of decision-making procedures. The argument is inspired by Knight's (Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, NewYork: Houghton Mifflin, 1921) model of internal business organisation, together with his explanation of profits pertaining to large business organisations by being connected with situations that he characterises as uncertain rather than risky. Capturing the decision-making advantages is fairly straightforward in Knight's explanation. Decision making is internalised to individuals who cope with uncertain situations— beyond the range of normal experience— in a manner consistent with managerial/entrepreneurial vision. Recent organisation theory has drawn attention to the use of groups as an integral part of decision making within large business organisations and this has important implications for economics. This paper highlights the role of groups in achieving Knightian advantages. The argument loosens the identification of organisation with a managerial/entrepreneurial vision, adding different levels and types of deliberate and automatic selection, the alignment of which is likely to be problematic.     

Unpicking antecedents of CRM adoption: a two-stage model

Most CRM work focuses on consumer applications. This paper addresses the operational adoption issues facing the organisation deploying CRM practices. There are a plethora of challenges facing organisations when adopting CRM. Previous research is limited to either examining the CRM adoption process at an individual/employees level or an organisational level. Hence, in this paper the myriad of organisational, marketing and technical antecedents that seem to impinge upon employee perceptions and organisational implementation of CRM are structured in a two-stage model. Using a stratified sample of 10 organisations across 4 sectors, 7 hypotheses are tested on data collected from 301 practitioners. A two-stage model is analysed using structural equation modelling. Findings reveal that CRM implementation relates to employee perceptions of CRM. This paper deepens our understanding of organisational practices to adopt CRM, so as an organisation properly profits from the expected benefits of CRM.     

Ethical Organisational Culture as a Context for Managers’ Personal Work Goals

The aims of this study were to investigate what kinds of personal work goals managers have and whether ethical organisational culture is related to these goals. The sample consisted of 811 Finnish managers from different organisations, in middle and upper management levels, aged 25–68 years. Eight work-related goal content categories were found based on the managers self-reported goals: (1) organisational goals (35.4 %), (2) competence goals (26.1 %), (3) well-being goals (12.1 %), (4) career-ending goals (7.3 %), (5) progression goals (6.8 %), (6) prestige/influence goals (4.2 %), (7) job change goals (4.2 %) and (8) employment contract goals (3.9 %). Ethical organisational culture operated as a context for personal goal setting: Those managers who evaluated their organisational culture as more ethical were more likely to report organisational goals (e.g. goals toward the success or performance of the organisation). However, if managers gave lower ratings regarding ethical culture, then they named job change and career-ending goals in more cases. Therefore, investing into ethical virtues of the organisational culture can promote managers’ personal work goals, which also benefit the organisation.     

The Question of Ethical Hypocrisy in Human Resource Management in the U.K. and Irish Charity Sectors

Whilst there is a growing volume of literature exploring the ethical implications of organisational change for HRM and the ethical aspects of certain HRM activities, there have been few published U.K. studies of how HR managers actually behave when faced with ethical dilemmas in their work. This paper seeks to enhance the foundations of such knowledge through an examination of the influence of organisational values on the ethical behaviour of Human Resource Managers within a sample of charities in the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland. A qualitative research design is adopted utilising semi-structured interviews. Findings highlight ethical inconsistency in people management in the charity sector arising from the clear application of strong and explicit organisational values to external client groups but their limited influence on people management strategies and practices within the organisation. Many of the ethical issues faced by HRM professionals in both countries arise from this inconsistency. In their handling of ethical dilemmas, the HRM professionals exhibit a combination of a care ethic and a concern for justice but it is also clear that in situations of management intransigence, a desire to be conscience driven often gives way to a contingent approach. Whilst respondents considered it inappropriate for the HRM function to be the conscience of the organisation, it is seen to have a key role in providing management with advice on ethical action. However, the ability of HRM to influence ethical behaviour is highly dependent on the status of the function within the organisation.     

Functional and contextual dimensions of INVs’ alliance partner selection

Prior research on the selection of international alliance partners calls for investigation of the potential specificity of selection criteria for evaluating partners for alliances with different objectives or functions. The present study responds to this need and contributes to the development of the field of international entrepreneurship by examining the relation between the alliance function and the criteria chosen. We studied three alliance functions: R&D, production, and marketing. Second, for each alliance function, we analyzed the criteria selected within two contexts: developing countries and those that consider emerging markets in their partner choice set. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 25 executives from international new ventures (INVs) in two major North American biotechnology clusters, representing 239 alliances; 65.7 % of these were signed with international partners. Results indicate that, aside from compatibility/complementarity of resources (R&D and production alliances), all criteria used within a single function are unique to that function. Furthermore, these criteria differ somewhat when the potential partners considered by a firm include those from both emerging and developed markets, compared with firms that limit potential partners to those in developed market contexts. Finally, the study reveals that respondent firms integrate country, industry, and market attractiveness factors with partner selection criteria for marketing alliances. This suggests that, for many firms, market choice and partner selection are not successive steps. The study’s originality lies in its focus on the relationship between alliance function and partner selection criteria used by INVs as well as within different contexts.     

The Effect of Organisational Vision on Service Quality Delivery

This study is an attempt to apply the concept of organisational vision to quantitative measures of service operation. Service organisations look at customer satisfaction ensuing from service quality delivery as a source of competitive advantage. To be able to contribute towards this end, vision must exert influence on the key variables job satisfaction and service effort of employees. The results show that organisational vision positively contributes to job satisfaction and service efforts of the participants working in a nationwide fast-food organisation.     

Examining strategic and economic development implications of globalising through franchising

This paper addresses the strategic and policy implications of franchise system expansion overseas. The study is based on survey data of 76 Mexican buyers of US franchise systems and information provided by seven directors of national franchise associations from both industrialised and developing countries. Globalisation, economic liberalisation and advances in communications provide strong incentives for franchising firms to seek access to foreign markets. This work delineates the conditions that favour, and that work against, international expansion of franchise networks from the perspective of franchisors, local franchise buyers and policy makers. The study questions the commonly held notion that franchising is consistent with successful firm strategies and the economic development goals of governments.     

动态联盟若干问题的研究

动态联盟是 2 1世纪建立的组织模式 ,它是针对建立动态联盟的关键因素———合作伙伴的选择问题提出一种新的定量分析模型———灰色评价法。该方法在灰色系统思想的指导下建立指标体系 ,运用定权聚类法综合各指标对候选企业进行评价 ,帮助企业做出正确选择     

Strategic determinants for the selection of partner alliances in the Indian tour operator industry: A cross-national study

The purpose of this study is to investigate the strategic determinants for the selection of partner alliances in the Indian tour operator industry. Using data from 102 UK, USA, Canadian and French tour operators in India, the study revealed that there is a set of partner selection criteria that is of most importance. The study revealed that nationality of the international tour operator is the major characteristic that discriminates partner selection criteria. Alliance performance is positively associated, in a descending order, with tour package formulation efficiency, technological expertise, local operation expertise, and marketing system and status. Thus, the study indicates some clear messages to policy makers and practitioners.