• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.45-60
• /
• 2020

Propose: The expansion of the delivery market in franchise business is a positive means of advertising and promotion for franchisees and contributes to substantial sales growth for stores. However, unrestricted and uncontrolled delivery sales and business activity of franchisee directly lead to encroachment of business territory between franchisees, resulting in increased operating costs of franchisees and conflicts between franchisees over rights and interests on franchise business. Moreover, in relation to the restrictions on the opening of competitors, it is incapacitating the law intent of prohibiting unfair encroachment of business territory, in the issue of the Fair Franchise Act in regard to guarantee of exclusive sales and business activity rights of franchisee. This study aims to point out major problems arising out of franchisee's infinite competition on delivery sales and business activity that are not restricted or controlled and then suggest legal supplements, policy tasks, and practical implications for improvement on the issues. Literature Review: In franchising business transactions, vertical restraints are associated with the exclusive territory establishment, control of transaction area, restriction of intangible sales and business activity of franchisee. Therefore, in the franchise business, it is necessary to take positive interpretation and application on e-commerce, the area of e-commerce, and delivery trading area and find proper and practical ways, by virtue of constructive attitude of each actor, to reduce the encroachment of business territory and various conflicts caused by unrestricted delivery trading area. Conclusion and suggestion: The finding shows that unrestricted or uncontrolled delivery sales and business activity of franchisees cause encroachment of business territory and many conflicts among franchisees. And this matters also weaken the legislation of the law on the protection of the business territory and can be negative factors that disrupt the protection of identity and sound development of the franchise industry in the long run. Therefore, in the franchise business, it is necessary to take positive interpretation and application on e-commerce, the area of e-commerce, and delivery trading area and find proper and practical ways, by virtue of constructive attitude of each actor, to reduce the encroachment of business territory and various conflicts caused by unrestricted delivery trading area.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.35-49
• /
• 2021

Purpose: The major objective of this study is to develop a model for the impact of franchisors' Gapjil (verbal·nonverbal Gapjil, abusing bargaining position, refusing transaction, false or exaggerated information, restrictive practices, unfair damage compensation) on franchisee's recontract intention. We also examine the mediating role of economic satisfaction and social satisfaction in the relationship between franchisors' Gapjil and franchisee's contract intention. Research design, data, and methodology: Data were collected from franchisee owners located nationwide in Korea. Out of 256 questionaires distributed, a total of 256 questionnaires were returned. After excluding 10 invalid respondent questionnaires, we coded and analyzed 246 valid questionnaires (effective response rate of 96.09%) using frequency, confirmatory factor analysis, correlations analysis, and structural equation modeling with SPSS 22.O and SmartPLS 3.0. Results: The findings of this study are summarized as follows: First, among the Gapjil of the franchisors, restrictive practices and unfair damage compensation had negative effects on economic and social satisfaction, but verbal and nonverbal Gapjil for economic and social satisfaction was not significant. Second, abusing bargaining positions and false or exaggerated information had negative effects on social satisfaction, but for economic satisfaction, found to be insignificant. Third, economic and social satisfaction had positive effects on the franchisee's recontract intention to the franchisor. Conclusion: The following implications of this study are as follows. First, the construct of Gapjil that occurs between the franchisors and the franchisees was first presented, and the franchisors' Gapjil is divided into interpersonal Gapjil and structural Gapjil. Second, the Gapjil of the franchisors can be an important predictor variable in maintaining and developing a long-term relationship between the franchisors and the franchisees. Third, solving conflict due to the Gapjil problem between franchisors and franchisees can be an important factor for franchisors and franchisees to co-survive and thrive in Korean franchise system. Fourth, this study suggest that managing the Gapjil of the franchisors was a important antecedent factor in maintaining long-term relationship between the franchisors and the franchisees. Therefore, this study will help franchisors formulate effective symbiotic marketing strategies to satisfy relationships with franchisees and consequently enhance long-term orientation.

• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.42 no.5
• /
• pp.1-18
• /
• 2017

This study focuses on the recent case held as to control in franchising. On the basis of analysis of the recent case, it examines the validity of the decision and suggests practical advice. The extensive judicial precedent has held that the franchisor and the franchisee possess the independent contractor relationship. But Williams v. Jani-king of Philadelphia Inc. suggest the conversion of the franchisee's status to an employees instead of an independent contractor. Franchisees allege that they were wrongly classified as independent contractors instead of employees because Jani-King had the ability to control the manner in which franchisees perform their day-to-day tasks. The appeal court held that Pennsylvania law does not distinguish between controls put in place to protect a franchise's intellectual property and controls for other purposes, and a franchisee may be an employee or an independent contractor depending on the nature of the franchise system controls. However, some degree of controls by the franchisor over the franchisee is inherent in the franchise and may even be mandated by the federal and state laws. Moreover, the appeal court affirmed that the franchise agreement, policies manual, and training manual alone could be sufficient to resolve the employment status. But it seems appropriate that the right to control on the documents is considered with the actual control.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.153-169
• /
• 2008

The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of production strategies operated by franchisors in the food service industry on the franchisees' culinary competence and subsequently franchisees' satisfaction with performance and recontract intention. In order to accomplish this purpose, two franchised enterprises which used mass-purchasing and mass-producing before distributing to each franchisee for the production strategies were participated and eventually 287 franchisees responded to this survey. Factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha showed the validity and internal consistency for the survey questionnaire. LISREL(8.72) was used to test the relationships between variables; production strategy, culinary competences, franchisee satisfaction, and recontract intention of the franchisees. The results present that the franchisees' satisfaction with the management system, quality of distribution, and quality of foods influenced on differentiation performance and supply performance of franchisees. On cost performance, only satisfaction with the food cost had an impact. The higher franchisee satisfaction with the franchisees' operations was, the higher recontract intention was in the franchise business. The results suggest the critical points for improving foodservice supplying system as well.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.39-49
• /
• 2019

Purpose - Customer loyalty and citizenship behavior are key success factors of franchise system. They make the management of franchisee more effective and efficient. Prior studies, however, mainly dealt with only acquisition utility of customer, such as perceived product/service quality and brand reputation to explain customer loyalty and citizenship behavior, which explains only on one side. We tried to investigate the effect of exchange utility of customer, such as relationship strength and psychological obligation together with the acquisition utility. In addition, we tried to investigate the relationship between customer loyalty and citizenship behavior in franchise context. Research design, data, and methodology - This study used data collected from the dining franchisee managers of 342 franchisors in South Korea. The franchisors consist of more than ten franchisees, the majority of which participated directly in the transaction with franchisor and have worked for more than six months. To test the hypotheses, the study used structural equation model analysis. Results - H1-1, 1-2, 1-3 predicted that acquisition utility would increase customer loyalty to franchisee. In support of H1-1, 1-2, 1-3, the results indicated that acquisition utilities such as perceived product value, perceived service value, and franchise brand reputation had positive effects on customer loyalty. H2-1, 2-2 predicted that exchange utility would increase customer loyalty to franchisee. In support of H2-2, the result indicated that psychological obligation had positive effects on customer loyalty like other acquisition utilities. However, H2-1 was not supported. Relationship strength had no significant effect on customer loyalty. H3 predicted that customer loyalty would increase customer citizenship behavior. In support of H3, the results indicated that customer loyalty had positive effect on customer citizenship behavior. Overall, the evidences generally supported the hypotheses. Conclusion - The results of the study show that not only acquisition utility but also exchange utility increases customer loyalty to franchisee and also show that customer loyalty increases customer citizenship behavior. Interestingly, however, relationship strength has no significant effect on customer loyalty. These results have two implications. The one is that increasing exchange utility can improve customer loyalty as acquisition utility can. The other one is that both of customer utilities can improve customer citizenship via customer loyalty.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.14 no.9
• /
• pp.95-110
• /
• 2016

Purpose - Based on expectation-disconfirmation theory, this study attempted to fill the gap in the literature by treating the expected profitability as a moderator in the relationship between these constructs, identifying what instrumental factors have effects on dissatisfaction, in turn lead to exit intention, neglect, voice, and loyalty, and provide the managerial implications for building long-term relationship to enhance the partnership between franchisor and franchisee. Research design, data and methodology - In order to test the hypotheses, the authors developed several hypotheses. The data were collected from 254 franchisees in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province with SPSS 18.0 and SmartPLS 2.0. Results - The findings of the study are as follows. First, marketing support and competitiveness of product and service had a negative effect on dissatisfaction, but did not on logistics support. Second, franchisee dissatisfaction had a positive effect on exit intention and neglect, and had a negative effect on loyalty. However, franchisee dissatisfaction had not a significant effect on voice. Third, expected profits play a moderating role in the relationships between marketing support, competitiveness of product and service and dissatisfaction, between dissatisfaction and exit intention, voice, loyalty, and neglect. First, marketing support and competitiveness of product and service were found to have a greater influence on dissatisfaction for the low expected profitability group than the highly expected profitability group. Also, dissatisfaction had a greater impact on exit intention, voice, and neglect for the low expected profitability group than the high expected profitability group while dissatisfaction had a weaker impact on loyalty for high expected profitability group. Conclusions - The result of this study indicates that franchisors should reduce dissatisfaction and prevent or improve complaint behaviors by continuously identifying the impact relationship between franchisee dissatisfaction and decision factors caused by difference in expectations for roles of franchisees and franchisors. In addition, franchisors should acknowledge that the impacts of marketing support, and product and service competitiveness on franchisee dissatisfaction and on exit intention, neglect, and loyalty differ by expected profits. Therefore they should provide support in perceiving high expected profits through creating direct profits including high sales, low costs, and low rents.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.21-40
• /
• 2006

Small and middle sized Franchise system channels experience conflicts because of constant interaction between franchiser and franchisee. However, it is rarely that attempt has been made to identify causes of conflicts in distribution of franchise industry. The purpose of this study was to explore cause of conflicts from the franchisee. For the study, data were collected from the owner or the shop-manager with a contractor in franchise systems. By means of in-depth interviews with multiple informants, their statement was analyzed qualitatively. From analysis of the resulting data, the causes of conflicts were associated with two broad sets, attitudinal and structural differences between franchisers and franchisees. First, attitudinal sources of conflict were identified as perception of subordinated relationships between channel members, delayed announcement on order changes, difficulties in communication by doing irresponsible behavior, different expectations between channel members in market territory and lack of consistent-supporting. Second, structural sources of conflict involved unilateral decision on interior, payment method, unreasonable delivery issue, treat franchisee with discrimination by the sales, in controlling against free management. There are limitations on generalization due to the results based on interview, but this study will be a useful exploratory step before designing a large scale survey.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.41-51
• /
• 2018

Purpose - In franchise system, how to build the relationship between the franchisor and franchisee through influence strategy is very important, because it affects on the long-term orientation like recontract intentions. Thus, this study examines the effect of mandatory influence strategy on relationship satisfaction, relationship trust, and recontract intentions in the context of food-service franchise industry. This study suggests the guidelines on how franchisor uses their influence strategy on franchisee to maintain and increase the recontract intentions. Research design, data, and methodology - This study examines the structural relationship between mandatory influence strategy, relationship satisfaction, relationship trust, and recontract intentions from the franchisee's perspective. Mandatory influence strategy divide into three sub-dimensions such as request, legalistic plea, threat. In order to test the purposes of this study, research model and hypotheses were developed. Every constructs were measured by multiple items tested and developed in the previous research. Also, the constructs utilized in this research are measured using 7-point scales anchored by "1=strongly disagree" and 7=strongly agree". The data were collected from 496 owner and owner manager franchisees and were analyzed using SPSS 21.0 and Smart PLS 3.0. program. Analysis of frequency was conducted to identify the demographics and general characteristics of the survey subjects. In order to measure the reliability and validity of the measurement tools, confirmatory factor analysis and correlation analysis were conducted and structural model analysis was conducted to verify the proposed research model. Result - The results of this study are as follows. First, this research found that mandatory influence strategy is positively related to relationship satisfaction and relationship trust, but not to recontract intention directly. Second, this research also found that the full mediating role of relationship satisfaction and relationship trust between the mandatory influence strategy and recontract intention. Conclusions - The findings of this research indicate that franchisor should use properly mandatory influence strategy to improve recontract intentions through relationship satisfaction and relationship trust. Due to the nature of food-service franchise industry, which needs high relationship quality, franchisor must manage their franchisee using influence strategy in order to improve satisfaction and trust. If franchisee perceives higher relationship quality, they will show higher intention to recontract. At the end of this paper, limitations and future research directions were suggested.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.17-24
• /
• 2017

Purpose - In recent years, research has been conducted on the conflict resolution strategies of the franchise headquarters and the franchisees, but there is a lack of research on how the power structure and cultural factors play a role in resolving conflicts. From this perspective, this study is to examine the structural relationship between franchisors' cultural orientation and relationship power, and conflict resolution strategies, relationship trust, and relationship performance using. The findings of this study suggest how franchise headquarters should establish long-term relationship with franchisees and share information. Research design, data, methodology - The data were collected from April 1 to April 15, 2013. Because this study examined franchise industries from the franchisee perspective, we contacted franchisee store owner and managers located in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. Interviewers trained contacted a total of 200 franchisees, and 196 franchisees responded. Out of 196 respondents, 13 respondents were deleted due to missing information. Thus, a total of 183 franchisee were used for this study. he data were analyzed using frequency analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and structural equational modeling with SPSS 24.0 and Amos 23.0 statistical program. Results - The results showed that cooperation orientation and relational power of franchisor had significant effects on conflict resolution strategies. Cooperating, obliging, and compromising strategies of conflict resolution strategy had significant effects on relationship trust. Also, relationship trust had significant effect on relationship performance. Conclusions - This study shows that the franchise headquarters and the franchisees share necessary information for common purposes and that continuous two-way communications play an important role in resolving conflicts. In other words, the result of this study suggests that if the franchise headquarters and the franchisee actively consider the position of the other party and strive to achieve the goal, conflict resolution may be more successful. In order to do this, the franchise headquarters will have to consider how to build and maintain continuous communication with the franchisees, and continuous education is also needed so that employees can have a cooperative attitude. However, since the culture of these organizations is not made up of simple staff training and is not formed within a short time, the CEO of the franchisee headquarters should take the lead in establishing a cooperative culture with the merchants over the long term.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.65-88
• /
• 2008

Since the implementation of economic reforms in 1978, the Chinese economy grows rapidly at an average annul growth rate of 9% over the post two decades. Franchising has been widely recognized as an important source of entrepreneurial activity. Trust is important in that it facilitates relational exchanges by permits partners to transcend short-run inequities or risks to concentrate on long-term profits or gains. In the relationship between the franchisors and franchisees, trust has been described as an important source of competitive advantage. However, little research has been done on the factors affecting trust in Chinese franchisor-franchisee relationships. The purpose of this study is to investigate what factors affect the trust in the franchise system in China, and to provide guidelines and insights to franchisors which enter Chinese market. In this study, according to Morgan and Hunt (1994), trust is defined as the extending when one party has confidence in an exchange partner's reliability and integrity. We offered a conceptual model of the empirical study. The model shows that the factors affecting the trust include franchisor's supports, communication, satisfaction with previous outcome and conflict. We also suggested the franchisor's supports and communication like to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and the franchisor's supports, communication and he franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome tend to decrease conflict. Before the formal study, a pretest involving exploratory interviews with owners from three franchisees was conducted to make sure the questionnaire was relevant and clear to the respondents. The data were collected using trained interviewers to carry out personal interviews with the aid of an unidentified, muti-page, structured questionnaire. The respondents comprised of owners, managers, and owner managers of franchisee-owned food service franchises located in Beijing, China. Even though a total of 256 potential franchises were initially contacted, the finally usable sample consisted of 125 respondents. As expected, the sampling method was successful in soliciting respondents with waried personal and firm characteristics. Self-administrated questionnaires were used for all measures. And established scales were used to measure the latent constructs in this study. The measures tapped the franchisees' perceptions of the relationship with the referent franchisor. Five-point Likert-type scales ranging from "strongly disagree" (=1) to "strongly agree" (=7) were used throughout the constructs (trust, eight items; support, five items; communication, four items; satisfaction, six items; conflict, three items). The reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.80. The proposed measurement model was estimated using SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 5.0 analysis package. We conducted A series of exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses to assess the convergent validity, discriminant validity, and reliability. The results indicate reasonable overall fits between the model and the observed data. The overall fit of measurement model were $X^2$= 159.699, p=0.004, d.f. = 116, GFI =.879, NFI =.898, CFI =.969, IFI =.970, TLI =.959, RMR =.058. The results demonstrated that the data reasonably fitted the model. We also examined construct reliability and reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The construct reliability of each construct was greater than.80 and the AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the analysis of Structure Equation Modeling (SEM), the results of path model indicated an adequate fit of the model: $X^2$= 142.126, p = 0.044, d.f. = 115, GFI =.892, NFI =.909, CFI =.981, IFI =.981, TLI =.974, RMR =.057. As hypothesized, the results showed that it is strategically important to establish trust in a franchise system, and the franchisor's supports, communication and satisfaction with previous outcome tend to reinforce franchisee's trust. The results also showed trust seems to decrease as the experience of conflict episodes increases. And we also noticed that franchisor's supports and communication tend to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and communication tend to decrease conflict. If the trust between the franchisor and franchisee can be established in a franchise system, franchising offers many benefits and reduces many costs. To manage a mutual trust of relationship with their franchisees, franchisor's should provide support effectively to their franchisees. Effective assistant services have direct effect on franchisees' satisfaction with previous outcome and trust in franchisor. Especially, franchise sales process, orientation, and training in the start-up period are key elements for success of the franchise system. Franchisor's support is an accumulated separate satisfaction evaluation with different kind of service provided by the franchisor. And providing support definitely can improve the trustworthy image of the franchisor. In the franchise system, conflicts of interests and exertions of different power sources are very common. The experience of conflict episodes seems to negatively relate to trust. Therefore, it is important to reduce the negative side of the relationship conflicts. Communication actually plays a broader role in reducing conflict and establish mutual trust in franchisor-franchisee relationship. And effective communication between franchisors and franchisees can improve franchisees' satisfaction toward the franchise system. As the diversification of Chinese markets, both franchisors and franchisees must keep the relevant, timely, and reliable communication. And it is very important to improve the quality of communication. Satisfaction with precious outcomes seems to positively relate to trust. Franchisors and franchisees that are highly satisfied with the previous outcomes that flow from their relationship will perceive their partner as advancing their goal achievement. Therefore, it is necessary for both franchisor and their franchisees to make the welfare of partner with effort. Little literature has focused on what factors affect the trust between franchisors and their franchisees in China. This study developed the hypotheses regarding the factors affecting trust in the transaction relationship. The results of data analysis supported the hypotheses strongly. There are certain limitations in this study. First, we may point out that some other factors missed in this study could be significantly important. Second, the context of this study, food service industry, limits its potential generalizability for all franchise systems. More studies in different categories of franchise system are needed to broaden its generalizability. Third, the model was tested empirically in a sample in Beijing, more empirical tests of the proposed model in other Chinese areas are needed. Finally, the analysis in this study was solely based on the perception of franchisees and the opinions of franchisors were not included.