• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.264-279
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• 2015

This study is conducted to investigate the relationships among service quality, satisfaction, and revisit intention of franchise snack bars customers located in Busan. The quality of franchise Korean snack bars' service was estimated by examining three sub-dimensions: service environment factors, interaction factors, and outcome quality factors, which are classified from Brady & Cronin's third-dimensional model. The survey was performed from March 9th to March 13th in 2015. Total 300 questionnaires were distributed and 272 questionnaires were employed for final analysis. SPSS 21.0 program was used to derive the following: factor analysis, reliability analysis, correlation, simple regression and multiple regression analysis. In results, the approachableness such as convenience for access was the most important reason when people choose a franchise Korean snack bar company followed by food taste and reasonable price. In addition, the results indicate that service environment quality, interaction quality, and outcome quality have all positive impact on the customers' satisfaction as well as revisit intention. Specifically, outcome quality have the greatest influence on the satisfaction and revisit intention among three service quality factors. This outcome proves that Korean snack bar franchise companies need to investigate more to improve their outcome quality such as food quality and serving time to satisfy customers. In conclusion, current study confirmed the relationships among service quality, satisfaction, and revisit intention in context of franchise snack bar stores. These results will suggest the snack bar foodservice segmentation as valuable marketing strategic, and that it can be utilized as a fundamental data to establish an efficient business plan in the industry.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.45-55
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• 2022

Purpose: Consumers' experience of functional attributes is remembered, and the experience lowers the cost of consumers' input from their point of view and reduces uncertainty. It also plays an important role in consumers' positive emotions and responses. Accordingly, if information search costs are reduced in terms of the costs perceived by consumers about restaurants, a strategy differentiated from other companies can be established. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of functional congruence of restaurant stores on information search cost reduction, positive/negative emotions, and loyalty. Research Design, Data, and Methodology: This study investigated functional congruence, information search cost reduction, and positive/negative emotions. The structural relationship between loyalty was analyzed. To verify this, a research hypothesis was established based on previous studies and a research model was constructed. The questionnaire items were modified and used according to the current study, based on previous studies. The data were collected using the questionnaire method from 187 people who had dining out experience. Frequency analysis was performed to confirm demographic characteristics. Reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity of the collected data were verified. The research model was analyzed with a structural equation modeling (SmartPLS 4). Results: The findings show that functional congruence had significant positive effects on information search cost reduction and positive emotion, but no significant effect on negative emotion. Information search cost reduction had significant positive effects on positive emotion/negative emotion but did not significantly affect loyalty. Lastly, both positive and negative emotions had significant positive effects on loyalty. Conclusion: Based on transaction cost theory, this study found how functional congruence and information search cost reduction influence consumers' emotions. The functional attributes of restaurants were perceived by customers as information, thus uncertainty was decreased. Finally, appropriate management strategies and implications of functional congruence and information search cost in the restaurant were suggested.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.39-47
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• 2014

Purpose - The ultimate goal of a franchise system comes from its win-win strategy. Agency theory uses goal incongruity to examine complex contracting problems between buyers and suppliers. Goal incongruity within a contractual relationship can be defined as the agent's desire not to cooperate. It is the degree to which the contractual terms do not satisfy the agent's goals. The greater the goal incongruity between the agent and the contract, the more likely it is that the agent will meet the terms of the contract. Thus, goal incongruity between buyers and suppliers has close relationships with both behavioral and financial performance. This study tries to examine these relationships in the franchise context using a model including related variables, such as regulatory foci, financial performance, and opportunism, to explain the reasons that not all franchisees perform their best. In particular, the study examines the effects of goal incongruity on regulatory focus, and the effects of regulatory focus on performance and opportunism. In short, the objective is to determine goal incongruity's effect on regulatory foci, and the effect of regulatory focus on performance and opportunism. Research design, data, and methodology - This study used data collected from the franchisee managers of 104 franchisors in South Korea. The franchisors include more than 10 franchisees, the majority of whom have been in business for more than five years. The study also surveyed 104 franchisees, matched with their franchisors for the sake of a dyadic approach. The study used regression analysis to test the hypotheses. Results - H1 and H2 predicted that goal incongruity would decrease promotion focus and increase prevention focus. Supporting H1, the result indicates goal incongruity had a positive effect on promotion focus. However, H2 was not supported. Goal incongruity had no significant effect on prevention focus (β = -.375, t = -4.331 and β = -.145, t = -1.950, respectively). H3 and H4 predicted that promotion focus would increase financial performance and decrease opportunism. Supporting these hypotheses, the results indicate that promotion focus had a positive effect on financial performance and a negative effect on opportunism (β = .771, t = 7.899 and β = -.765, t = -6.778, respectively). H5 and H6 predicted that prevention focus would decrease financial performance and increase opportunism. However, the results do not support these hypotheses. The results indicate that prevention focus had no effects on opportunism or financial performance (β = -.130, t = -1.070 and β = .090, t = .641, respectively). Overall, the evidence generally supported the hypotheses. Conclusion - Goal incongruity between a franchisor and a franchisee increases the franchisee's financial performance and opportunism, and the relationship is mediated by promotion focus. Interestingly, however, prevention focus has no mediating effect between goal incongruity and performance. Even though no significant relation exists between goal incongruity and prevention focus, the results have two implications. First, decreasing goal incongruity can improve financial performance and suppress franchisee opportunism. Second, the relationship between goal incongruity and performance affects promotion-focused franchisees.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.8
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• pp.41-48
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• 2015

Purpose - This study's objective is to confirm the effects of the perceived relationship value, alternative attractiveness, and investment size on Korean food service franchisees' commitment, using an investment model. Among the three factors, the study examines which factors enhance or weaken the commitment in the franchising investment model. Research design, data, methodology - The data were collected from 495 franchisees and analyzed by a SEM (Structure Equation Model) using path analysis by SPSS 18.0 and AMOS 18.0. Results - 1) The perceived relationship value has a positive effect on franchisee commitment. 2) The alternative attractiveness has a negative effect on franchisee commitment. 3) The investment size has a positive effect on franchisee commitment. Conclusions - The findings show that the investment model can be adapted to franchising and confirms previous investment model study results. We can assume that the higher the perceived relationship value and the bigger the investment, the stronger the commitment, and the greater the alternative attractiveness, the weaker the commitment. These results offer managerial implications for a franchisor wanting to strengthen franchisee commitment.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.19-29
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• 2019

Purpose: In beauty industry, service quality is very critical, because it impacts on the customer's positive attitude and behavior to the beauty salon or beauty brand. Thus, this research examines the effects of service attributes on customer satisfaction and loyalty in beauty salon. This research suggests the guidelines for how beauty salons should manage their physical environment, price policy, professional skills, and employees that improve management and business performance. Research design, data, and methodology: This study examines the structural relationship between service attributes, customer satisfaction, and loyalty. Service attributes divide into four sub-dimensions such as servicescape, price service, technical service, and employee service. In order to test the purposes of this research, research model and hypotheses were developed. All constructs were measured with multiple items developed and examined in previous studies. A total of 160 questionnaires were distributed and collected, and 150 were used for analysis except 10 that were unresponsive or unfaithful. The data were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and SmartPLS 3.0 statistical package program. Result: The results of this research are as follows. First, all sub-dimensions of service attributes such as servicescape, price service, technical service, and employee service have significant positive impacts on satisfaction. Second, customer satisfaction have significant impact on loyalty. Conclusions: This study suggests an integrated model of the relationship that the characteristics of beauty salon service attributes affect customer loyalty through satisfaction, and suggests how to manage and allocate limited resources in the beauty industry. The findings of this research indicate that the level of customer satisfaction is shown to be increased by servicescape, technical characteristics, value of money, and human attributes. Thus, beauty salon management should focus on the relationship with their customers how to improve customer loyalty through satisfaction. The quality of beauty service influences customer's attitudes and behaviors toward beauty salon. Considering the beauty business, where the quality and customer satisfaction of beauty services are determined by the hairdresser's beauty skills,, the beauty salons must find ways to improve their skills and new trend of hair style. If beauty salon customers perceive the high quality of beauty service, they revisit beauty salon and recommend it to others.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.41-51
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• 2020

Purpose: Fast food franchise companies are trying a variety of innovative services to increase their competitiveness in response to changes in population composition in the fast food market and rapid changes in consumption trends due to technological development. From this point of view, franchise companies that have focused on offline store operations are providing O2O (offline to online) service as a core service for customer convenience. This new attempt is a strategy to increase loyalty by applying an interaction method based on understanding the characteristics of new generation consumers. However, existing studies are focused on the relationship between O2O service and acceptance, so very little is known about how O2O service affects customer loyalty. Therefore, this study examines the impacts of customer involvement and relative advantages of fast food O2O service on customer brand engagement (cognitive and affective engagement) and store loyalty for MZ(Millennials - Z) generations. Research design, data, and methodology: In order to achieve the purposes of this research, several hypotheses were developed. The data were collected from 247 questionnaires in their 16-30s and were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and SmartPLS 3.0 program. Measurement model analysis was carried out to assess convergent and discriminant validity. Also, common method bias was tested using the values of VIF (variance inflation factor). The hypotheses was tested using structural equation modeling. Result: First, involvement has a positive effect on cognitive and affective engagement. Second, relative advantages have has a positive effect on cognitive and affective engagement. Third, cognitive influences affective engagement. Finally, both cognitive and affective engagement affect store loyalty, but affective engagement has a stronger effect on store loyalty than cognitive engagement. Conclusions: In the process of consumer-brand interaction, it was confirmed that store loyalty was influenced by cognitive and affective engagement sequentially. However, the results show that affective engagement has a relatively stronger on store loyalty than cognitive engagement. Therefore, it is necessary to establish an O2O service strategy to maintain long-term loyal customers by inducing cognitive participation with high-involved consumer, as well as affective interaction, in order to obtain new customers and increase customer loyalty.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.57-74
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• 2023

Purpose: As global interest in environmental issues increases, the demand for green products/services is increasing. Companies are establishing eco-friendly policies to meet the changing expectations of customers. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the effect of eco-friendly behavior and third-party certification on trust, satisfaction, and loyalty as well as the mediating role of satisfaction based on SOR and signaling theory. Research design, data and methodology: This study collected data from 501 respondents who visited restaurant and analyzed using measurement model with SPSS 28.0 and SmartPLS 4. Results: First, restaurants' eco-friendly behavior and third-party certification (TPC) positively influenced trust while these did not influence satisfaction. Second, trust positively influenced satisfaction. Third, trust and satisfaction positively influenced loyalty. Fourth, TPC had stronger impact on trust and satisfaction compared to eco-friendly behavior in female group while TPC had stronger impact on trust in male group. Conclusions: This study emphasized the importance of TPC over eco-friendly behavior. Restaurants should maintain pro-environmental behaviors such as reducing single-use items while obtaining TPC such as ISO and LEED certifications to increase customer trust. It also found the importance of trust and satisfaction in securing loyal customers. Restaurants should make efforts to build bonds with customers through authentic marketing such as events that encourage customer participation.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.31-46
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• 2023

Purpose: Brand communication plays an important role in the credibility of consumer behavior as it enhances brand equity. This study investigates the effects of brand communication (firm-created communication, consumer-generated communication) on brand awareness, brand attitude, brand loyalty in the hotel business sector by applying the SOR theory (stimulus-organism-response theory). Research design, data, and methodology: This study was analyzed in a quantitative way using the survey results of 400 customers who had experience of visiting hotels. In this study, SmartPLS 4.0 was used to evaluate the research model. The reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity of the measurement tool were verified. Result: Result was found that consumer-generated communications had a positive effect on brand awareness and brand attitude, whereas firm-created communications had a significant effect on brand awareness. In addition, brand awareness had a positive effect on both brand attitude and brand loyalty. Finally, brand attitude was found to have a positive effect on brand loyalty. Conclusions: This study redefines the concept of where chain hotel groups should focus when providing consumers with information about their brands and services. As a result, the conceptual framework of brand communication to increase new customer visits to the hotel brand has been expanded.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.232-245
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to show that the servicescape influences customers' attitudes and behavior in retail business environments. Based on the findings from the related studies, this study proposed a model which explores how customers' perceptions of sevicescape influence customers' cognitive, affective, and conative attitudes (i.e., brand image, customer satisfaction, and revisit intention) in franchise coffee shops. In order to test the proposed research framework, the data were collected in Daegu and two other cites located in Gyeongbuk province. Descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and a series of multiple regression analysis were utilized in the study. The findings showed that the servicescape of franchise coffee shops significantly affected customers' cognitive, affective, and conative attitudes. In particular, it is found that the affective attitude (i.e., customer satisfaction) was best explained by the servicecape among the three types of attitudes. Marketing implications are also discussed based on the findings.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.49-71
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• 2010

Franchise businesses in South Korea have contributed to economic growth and job creation, and its growth potential remains very high. However, despite such virtues, domestic franchise businesses face many problems such as the instability of franchisor's business structure and weak financial conditions. To solve these problems, the government enacted legislation and strengthened franchise related laws. However, the strengthening of laws regulating franchisors had many side effects that interrupted the development of the franchise business. For example, legal regulations regarding franchisors have had the effect of suppressing the franchisor's leadership activities (e.g. activities such as the ability to advocate the franchisor's policies and strategies to the franchisees, in order to facilitate change and innovation). One of the main goals of the franchise business is to build cooperation between the franchisor and the franchisee for their combined success. However, franchisees can refuse to follow the franchisor's strategies because of the current state of franchise-related law and government policy. The purpose of this study to explore the effects of franchisor's leadership style on franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. We classified leadership styles according to the path-goal theory (House & Mitchell, 1974), and it was hypothesized and tested that the four leadership styles proposed by the path-goal theory (i.e. directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented leadership) have different effects on franchisee's commitment. Another purpose of this study to explore the how the level of franchisee's self-efficacy influences both the franchisor's leadership style and franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. Results of the present study are expected to provide important theoretical and practical implications as to the role of franchisor's leadership style, as restricted by government regulations and the franchisee's self-efficacy, which could be needed to improve the quality of the long-term relationship between the franchisor and franchisee. Quoted by Northouse(2007), one problem regarding the investigation of leadership is that there are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are people who have tried to define it. But despite the multitude of ways in which leadership has been conceptualized, the following components can be identified as central to the phenomenon: (a) leadership is a process, (b) leadership involves influence, (c) leadership occurs in a group context, and (d) leadership involves goal attainment. Based on these components, in this study leadership is defined as a process whereby franchisor's influences a group of franchisee' to achieve a common goal. Focusing on this definition, the path-goal theory is about how leaders motivate subordinates to accomplish designated goals. Drawing heavily from research on what motivates employees, path-goal theory first appeared in the leadership literature in the early 1970s in the works of Evans (1970), House (1971), House and Dessler (1974), and House and Mitchell (1974). The stated goal of this leadership theory is to enhance employee performance and employee satisfaction by focusing on employee motivation. In brief, path-goal theory is designed to explain how leaders can help subordinates along the path to their goals by selecting specific behaviors that are best suited to subordinates' needs and to the situation in which subordinates are working (Northouse, 2007). House & Mitchell(1974) predicted that although many different leadership behaviors could have been selected to be a part of path-goal theory, this approach has so far examined directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented leadership behaviors. And they suggested that leaders may exhibit any or all of these four styles with various subordinates and in different situations. However, due to restrictive government regulations, franchisors are not in a position to change their leadership style to suit their circumstances. In addition, quoted by Northouse(2007), ssubordinate characteristics determine how a leader's behavior is interpreted by subordinates in a given work context. Many researchers have focused on subordinates' needs for affiliation, preferences for structure, desires for control, and self-perceived level of task ability. In this study, we have focused on the self-perceived level of task ability, namely, the franchisee's self-efficacy. According to Bandura (1977), self-efficacy is chiefly defined as the personal attitude of one's ability to accomplish concrete tasks. Therefore, it is not an indicator of one's actual abilities, but an opinion of the extent of how one can use that ability. Thus, the judgment of maintain franchisee's commitment depends on the situation (e.g., government regulation and policy and leadership style of franchisor) and how it affects one's ability to mobilize resources to deal with the task, so even if people possess the same ability, there may be differences in self-efficacy. Figure 1 illustrates the model investigated in this study. In this model, it was hypothesized that leadership styles would affect the franchisee's commitment, and self-efficacy would moderate the relationship between leadership style and franchisee's commitment. Theoretically, quoted by Northouse(2007), the path-goal approach suggests that leaders need to choose a leadership style that best fits the needs of subordinates and the work they are doing. According to House & Mitchell (1974), the theory predicts that a directive style of leadership is best in situations in which subordinates are dogmatic and authoritarian, the task demands are ambiguous, and the organizational rule and procedures are unclear. In these situations, franchisor's directive leadership complements the work by providing guidance and psychological structure for franchisees. For work that is structured, unsatisfying, or frustrating, path-goal theory suggests that leaders should use a supportive style. Franchisor's Supportive leadership offers a sense of human touch for franchisees engaged in mundane, mechanized activity. Franchisor's participative leadership is considered best when a task is ambiguous because participation gives greater clarity to how certain paths lead to certain goals; it helps subordinates learn what actions leads to what outcome. Furthermore, House & Mitchell(1974) predicts that achievement-oriented leadership is most effective in settings in which subordinates are required to perform ambiguous tasks. Marsh and O'Neill (1984) tested the idea that organizational members' anger and decline in performance is caused by deficiencies in their level of effort and found that self-efficacy promotes accomplishment, decreases stress and negative consequences like depression and emotional instability. Based on the extant empirical findings and theoretical reasoning, we posit positive and strong relationships between the franchisor's leadership styles and the franchisee's commitment. Furthermore, the level of franchisee's self-efficacy was thought to maintain their commitment. The questionnaires sent to participants consisted of the following measures; leadership style was assessed using a 20 item 7-point likert scale developed by Indvik (1985), self-efficacy was assessed using a 24 item 6-point likert scale developed by Bandura (1977), and commitment was assessed using a 6 item 5-point likert scale developed by Morgan & Hunt (1994). Questionnaires were distributed to Korean optical franchisees in Seoul. It took about 20 days to complete the data collection. A total number of 140 questionnaires were returned and complete data were available from 137 respondents. Results of multiple regression analyses testing the relationships between the each of the four styles of leadership shown by the franchisor as independent variables and franchisee's commitment as the dependent variable showed that the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.13, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.07, p<.001)were significant. However, when participants divided into high and low self-efficacy groups, results of multiple regression analyses showed that only the relationship between achievement-oriented leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.14, p<.001) was significant in the high self-efficacy group. In the low self-efficacy group, the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.17, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.10, p<.001) were significant. The study focused on the franchisee's self-efficacy in order to explore the possibility that regulation, originally intended to protect the franchisee, may not be the most effective method to maintain the relationships in a franchise business. The key results of the data analysis regarding the moderating role of self-efficacy between leadership behavior style as proposed by path-goal and commitment theory were as follows. First, this study proposed that franchisor should apply the appropriate type of leadership behavior to strengthen the franchisees commitment because the results demonstrated that supportive and participative leadership styles by the franchisors have a positive influence on the franchisee's level of commitment. Second, it is desirable for franchisor to validate the franchisee's efforts, since the franchisee's characteristics such as self-efficacy had a substantial, positive effect on the franchisee's commitment as well as being a meaningful moderator between leadership and commitment. Third, the results as a whole imply that the government should provide institutional support, namely to put the franchisor in a position to clearly identify the characteristics of their franchisees and provide reasonable means to administer the franchisees to achieve the company's goal.