• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.1-24
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• 2012

Franchises have recently emerged as the most rapidly expanding industry positioned to create a large impact in the domestic economic. The Chinese franchise industry developed rapidly in the period prior and subsequent to WTO accession with more than 50% of new franchises brands emerging since 2000. M&A transactions in the Chinese franchise industry have progressed actively. In the period from 2005-2007, due to the wholesale and retail market opening in accordance with the guidelines laid forth within the MOU by the WTO the Chinese franchise market is now the largest market in the world all despite a short history of only 20 years. The amount of franchise market research on China is disproportional to its current size and development potential. Beginning in the 1990s, market research conducted by the International Franchise Association focused on emerging markets in Eastern Europe and China. While the research dealt with the Chinese investment environment, it insufficiently explained the market region and cultural environment. The purpose of this research is (i) to investigate the determinants of the performance of franchise systems in China and (ii) new contract renewals based on performance factors. This study will complement existing research in terms of the franchisee perspective. This study may also prove of the benefit to the franchise companies entering the Chinese franchise market enabling them to develop an effective strategy. This study shows that support, incentives, and system standardization by franchisor yielded a positive effect on management performance. This is consistent with previous studies by Shin (2000) and Kim (2008) targeting Korean franchises. Therefore, in the Chinese market, the franchisor must focus on support, incentives, and system standardization rather than concentrate only on the recruitment of franchisees in order to improve revenue. Hypotheses regarding franchisor control have been dismissed in existing research, in the opinion of this study, due to their complexity and inability to control the merchant as a one-kind-assessment-standard. Our findings show that the franchisees' financial condition, management ability and entrepreneurial spirit, among franchisee's characteristics, have a positive effect on franchisor's business performance and satisfaction for the franchisee. This is consistent with previous studies on headquarters' management performance of Lussier (1996), Heo and Jang (2008), and franchisees' financial condition, management ability and entrepreneurial spirit effect on franchisor's satisfaction of Weaven and Franzer (2007), Kim (2009), Han (2009), and Yoon etc. (2008). Therefore, when permitting a franchisee, financial condition, management ability, entrepreneurship of the franchisee should be carefully considered. Among relational factors between franchisor and franchisee, trust has the positive influence on the management performance of the franchisor while conflict has a negative effect. However, trust, commitment and conflict factors have been shown not to have any impact on the satisfaction of the franchise headquarters. This result is consistent with the previous studies of Pavlou and Ba (2000), Morrison (1999), Weaven and Frazer (2007), Kim and Park (1994), Sohn (2007) which show that trust between franchisor and the franchisees have a positive effect and that conflict has a negative impact on franchisor's management performance. Other factors causing a negative effective on the franchisor's management performance are a rapid environmental changes and uncertainty in the business. This is consistent with Campbell et al (2007), Kim and Kim (2009), Han and Baek (2008). Finally, the high management performance and satisfaction of the franchise headquarters has a positive effect on the intention of franchise renewal. In the case of large markets such as China, the franchisor's strategy and the role is very important. In this study, we also investigated the characteristics of franchisor and franchisee, relationship, and environmental uncertainty affecting on the management performance and satisfaction of franchisor. Recently, Korean franchises are attempting to enter foreign markets through the rise in popularity of Korean culture and entertainment commonly referred to as the Korean wave. This study provides recommendations for Korean franchises intending on entering the Chinese market. First, in order to achieve stable profits, the franchise corporation needs to support the operation of the individual franchisee through incentives and standardization of services. Second, because trust between the franchisor and franchisee has a positive effect on management performance, on-going discussion and cooperation is necessary to reduce the level of conflict.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.1-23
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• 2011

The Freedom of Information System has been introduced into the society based on the Fair Trade Transactions Act, which was established by Fair Trade Commission (FTC) on May, 2002. However, the system itself has showed limitations in guaranteeing a reliability and transparency of the disclosure document. Thus, since February, 2008, FTC not only made franchisors to register disclosure documents but also adopted the Disclosure Document Registration System, which forced them to provide registered disclosure documents to franchise applicants and franchisee. Franchisors consider the newly adopted Disclosure Document Registration System a restrictive system. However, considering the recent trend of fast growing franchising industry and the importance of being competitive, franchisors need to utilize the disclosure documents to promote their business and to gain trusts from franchise applicants by providing truthful information. In that way, franchisors will be able to establish a foundation that franchising industry might be successful and reduce the agency fee by cutting out conflicts with franchisees. Thus, this study aims to study the ways of effective preparation of disclosure document and its utilization from a franchisor viewpoint.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.69-91
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• 2007

This study is aimed to analyze the impact of the perception of fairness on the relationship quality as a way to enhance the competitiveness through the establishment of a long-term relationship between food service franchisors and franchisees. An empirical analysis found that the more positively the fairness of franchisors is recognized, the more positive impact it has on the relationship quality. As both the distributive fairness and the procedural fairness, the two concepts of fairness, are perceived in a more positive manner, the trust and satisfaction over franchisers were found to be higher, with the conflict shown to be lower. Though both the distributive fairness and the procedural fairness showed a significant result, the procedural fairness, in particular, has a greater impact on the trust and satisfaction over franchisers than the distributive fairness. In addition, the quality of relationship between franchisor and franchisees has a positive impact on a long-term commitment. That is that as their trust and satisfaction over franchisors are higher with less conflict, franchisees will become more cooperative with their franchisors. The greatest impact on the long-term unity, among the factors that constitute the relationship quality, appeared to be trust. Accordingly, it is advisable persons in charge at franchisors place the greatest focus on fostering trust to establish a long-term relationship, inducing it in a positive direction. From such result, suggestions can be made in establishing a strategy for developing an appropriate relationship between food service franchisors and franchisees. Firstly, persons in charge at food service franchisors will have to induce the perception of franchisors' procedural fairness by franchisees in a positive direction in order to enhance the Quality of relationship with franchisees. Secondly, as an alternative strategy for forming a long-term relationship between franchisors and franchisees, the effort should be made to foster a greater trust in franchisors first. In many cases, franchisors currently focus more on their convenience in management than the development of systems to satisfy the franchisee needs. This contravenes with the essence of relationship marketing and thus, it can be said it is the most important of all that focus should be directed at trust and fairness in the effort toward a sustained relationship between franchisors and franchisees in the future.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.65-85
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• 2010

The key success factors for Franchise Enterprise as a virtual company which is established based on franchise system are the competitiveness of sub-systems in franchise system such as franchisor, franchisee, vendor(supplier), and customer, and to sustain the symbiotic relationship among sub-systems. In this regard, evaluating franchise system is considered to be implemented in different contexts and methods comparing with extant evaluation system in franchise business which is more focused on the relationship between franchisor and franchisee. The flagship role of establishing franchise system is to be franchisor system, however, the symbiotic relationship among other sub-system including franchisee, vendor, and customer leads to successful Franchise Enterprise. The purpose of this study is to research existing evaluation systems for franchise business and to explore the model of evaluating franchise system, what is called, "Symbiosis Index".

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.173-199
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• 2011

A franchisee has to depend on the overall system, such as knowhow and management support, from a franchisor in the franchise system and the two parties do not start with the same position in economic or information power because the franchisor controls or supports through selling or management styles. For this, unfair trades the franchisor's over controlling and limiting the franchisee might occur and other side effects by the people who give the franchisee scam trades has negatively influenced on the development of franchise industry and national economy. So, the purpose of this study is preventing unfair trade for the franchisee from understanding the causes and problems of dispute between the franchisor and the franchisee focused on the dispute cases submitted the Korea Fair Trade Mediation Agency and seeking ways to secure the transparency of recruitment process and justice of franchise management process. The results of the case analysis are followed; first, affiliation contracts should run on the franchisor's exact public information statement and the surely understanding of the franchisee. Secondly, the franchisor needs to use their past experiences and investigated data for recruiting franchisees. Thirdly, in the case of making a contract with the franchisee, the franchisor has to make sure the business area by checking it with franchisee in person. Fourthly, the contracts are important in affiliation contracts, so enacting the possibility of disputes makes the disputes decreased. Fifthly, lots of investigation and interests are needed for protecting rights and interests between the franchisor and franchisee and preventing the disputes by catching the cause and more practical solutions of the disputes from the government.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.177-190
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• 2017

This study investigates the effects of franchisors' characteristics including brand reputation, training and product related support, franchisees' characteristics including store location and management on the performance and recontract intention of franchisees in bakery franchise industry. Also, this study examine the moderating effect of CEO experience of franchisees among the franchisors' and franchisees' characteristics, and performance. To empirically test these relationships, data were collected from 386 respondents who are franchisees in the bakery franchise sector. In the verification of hypotheses, the structure equation modeling(SEM) is used. The results of this study are as follows. First, franchisors' brand reputation, training support, and franchisees' locational factor have significant effects on the financial performance of franchisees positively. However, franchisors' product related support and franchisees' management of the store have not significant effects on the performance. Second, the performance of franchisees has positive effect on the recontract intention. Third, the moderating effect of CEO experience is only significant in the relationship between franchisors' training support and the performance. Based on the findings, this study suggest the importance of building a good brand image and superior training system for franchisors to improve mutual ongoing growth. Also, franchisors should determine whether nascent franchisee entrepreneurs have CEO experiences to further improve performance. If they do not have related experiences, both opening and ongoing training supports of franchisors and the efforts of franchisees towards learning are required. Finally, this study suggest that both franchisors and franchisees should accurately analyze the conditions of possible locations and establish strategies to select beneficial location before starting a franchise business.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.5-14
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• 2009

This study explores the relationships among franchisor's leadership style, franchisee's revenue, and commitment The main purpose of this study is when the causal relationship between leadership style and revenue to determine the mediating effect of commitment and when causal relationship between leadership style and commitment to determine the moderating effect of motivation. The results of the study show that franchisor's leadership styles are significantly related to franchisee's revenue. Although all leadership styles exhibit significant relationships with franchisee's revenue, only achievement oriented leadership style plays a significant role in the formation of franchisee's revenue. The level of franchisee's intrinsic motivation is significantly moderated between franchisor's supportive leadership style and commitment. It is also revealed that commitment exhibit complete or partial mediation effect in the relationships between franchisor's all leadership style and franchisee's revenue. Implications and future research directions are also discussed.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.1-17
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• 2010

This study aims to analyze the relationship between the expectation of franchisees to their franchisers before contracting and perceived performance after actually operation. The analysis data was collected from 789 franchisees located in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do of South Korea. The findings are as followings: first, the gap between expectation of franchisees and perceived performance was negative and it becomes an necessary for franchise managers to manage the expectation of franchisees by using various effective marketing strategies. Second, the gaps were different among different franchise industrial classifications and the gap in the food-service industry is the largest.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.87-102
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of food service franchise's support system on franchisee's trust, financial performance and intention of multi-store operation. For this purpose, the results of the survey were collected for 111 small and mid-sized food service franchisees in Korea with less than 100 brand franchises, referring to article 9 of the act on Fair Trade. Structural equation model analysis was used for hypothesis testing. The results of the study are as follows; First, a support for store development, education, logistics, and supervisors among franchise's support system were found to have a significant impact on the franchisee's trust, but public relations support was not significantly affected. Second, a support for store development had significant influence on the financial performance, but the support for education, logistics, supervisors and public relations did not significantly affect the financial performance. Third, franchisee's trust has been shown to have a significant impact on financial performance and intention of multi-store operation. Fourth, financial performance was shown to have a significant impact on the intention of multi-store operation. Finally, confirming the mediated effects of financial performance on the effect of franchisee's trust and intention of multi-store operations also proved to have indirect effects. This study identified the impact relationship between the small and medium-sized food service franchise support system, franchisee's trust, financial performance and intention of multi-store operation. In particular, it is deemed meaningful that the performance of Korea's small and medium-sized food service franchises and the relationship of influence that can grow together through the qualitative growth of the franchise's system.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.23-32
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• 2010

This study attempted to investigate the impact of relational characteristics just like level of perceived communication, support, conflict and justice between optical franchisor and franchisees on relational performance. Data collected from A Optical Franchisees supported two hypotheses such as communication and relational satisfaction, relational satisfaction and long-term commitment that were proposed. Another result between justice and relational satisfaction in this study shows that the other research and interpretation for this phenomenon was attempted. In accordance with the results, the following conclusion was made: it is very important to communicate with franchisor, and the core mean for that would be the enhancement of the long-term commitment of franchisees through the perceived relational satisfaction of franchisee's in optical franchise system. To accomplish this, to understand characteristics of franchisor and franchisees and fit of their characteristics should be preceded.