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

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
• /
• v.52 no.1
• /
• pp.37-49
• /
• 1981

The purpose of the study is to find out the objective method of valuation on the forest stands through the analysis of logging costs that is positively related to timber production. The two forest (Amgog, Whangryoung), located nereby, but forest type, logging and skidding conditions being slightly different, were slected to carry out the study. The objective timber stumpage value were determined by investigating the appropriate timber production costs and profits of logging operations. The main result obtained in this study are as follows: 1. The rate of logging cost in consisting of timber market price is 13.15% in the area of Amgog logging place and 19.48% in Whangryoung. 2. The rate of the other production cost excluding logging cost is 15.36% in the area of Amgog logging place and 28.85% in Whangryoung. 3. The total rate of timber production cost in consisting of the market price is more than 28.51% in the area of Amgog logging place and 48.33% in Whangryoung, 4. Though the productivity of forest land is affected by the selection of tree species, tending, treatments and effective management of forest land, the more important problem is improvement of logging condition. 5. The rate of production cost in timber price is so high that we should endeavore to improve the productivity of labour and its quality, and minimize the difference of piece work per day in accordance to the various site condition. 6. Although the profit of forest industry is related to the period of recapturing investment, it is more closely related to the working condition, risk of investment and continuous change of social investment interest. 7. If the right variables which are related to the timber market, are objectively obtained, the stumpage value of mature forests can be objectively caculated by applying straight line discounting method or compound discounting method in caculating the stump to market price.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.3059-3088
• /
• 1973

The Object of research was laid on the dry paddy field which had a low level of underground water, rather than on a paddy field with a high level of underground water. In the treatment of the clay paddy field before transplanting we employed 3 kinds of methods; deep plowing, development of cracks by drying the surface of the field under which pipe drain was built. This study was to find which one, among these three methods, is the most effective to let roots extend to deep zone and increase the yield of rice and at the same time, for trafficability of large scale machinery which will be introduced to the harvest, in the light of the earth bearing capacity in relation with underground drainage. In the treatments of plots, 1) the kyong plot was plowed 39 days before transplanting and dried, 2) the kyun plot was plowed again 2days before transplanting after plowing 39 days before transplanting, leveling field surface in the saturation with water and developing the cracks by drying, 3) the kyunam plot was plowed again 2 days before transplanting after setting the drainage pipe and at the same time plowing 39 days before transplanting, leveling field surface in the saturation with water and developing the cracks by drying. Also each plot above had three different levels of soil depth, respectively; that is 15cm, 25cm, 35cm. The kyong plot with 15cm-depth was he control. The results obtained were as follows; 1. The kyunam plot showed a remarkably lager amount of water consumption by better underground drainage than the kyong and the kyun plot, and the kyong plot indicated a greater amount of water consumption than the kyun plot. Therefore the amount of available rainfall was decreased in the order of kyunam>kyong>kyun. The net duty of water decreased in the order of kyunam>kyong>kyun and its showed about 105cm in depth at the kyunam plot, about 70cm in depth at the kyong plot and about 45cm in depth at kyun plot, regardless of soil depth. 2. According to the tendency that the weight of the total root was effected by the maximum depth of the crack, it seemed that the root development was more affected by the depth of the crack than by only the crack itself. The weight of the total roots tended to increase as the depth of the crack got deeper and deeper, and the weight of the total roots was increased in the order of kyun<kyunam<kyong. 3. In the growing of the plant height, the difference did not appear at the beginning of growing(peak period of tillering) of any plot, But for the mid period of growing(ending period of tillering) to the period of young panicle formation, the deeper the depth of plot is, the more the growing goes down. On the contrary at the late period of growing, growth was more vigorous in the plot with deep depth than in the plot with shallow depth. Since the midperiod of growing, in the light of experimental treatment, the kyun plot was not better in growing than the other two plots and no remarkable defference was shown between the kyunam and the kyong plot, but the kyunam plot had the tendency of superiority in growing plant height. 4. As the depth of plot went deeper, the decreasing tendency was shown in the number of tillers through a whole period of growingi. When the above results were observed concering each plot of experimental treatment, the kyun plot was always smaller in the number of tiilers than the kyunam and the kvong plot, and the kyong plot was slightly larger than the kyunam plot in the number of tillers. 5. When each plot of the different experimental treatments was compared with the control plot(15-kyong), yield(weight of grains) was increased by 17% for the 35-kyong plot, by 10% for the 35-kyunam and yields for the other plots were less or nomore than the control plot. On the whole, as the depth of plot went deeper, yields for plots was increased in the order of kyong>kyunam>kyun. 1% of significance between the levels of depths and 5% of significance between the treatments were shown. 6. The depth of consumptive water which was more effective on the weight of grains is that of the last half period. When the depth of consumptive water was increased at the range of less than 2.7cm/day in the 15cm plot, 3.0cm/day in the 25cm plot and 3.3cm/day in the 35cm plot, the weight of grains was increased, and at the same time the weight of grains was increased as the depth of plot went deeper. The deeper plots was of advantage to the productivity at the same depth of consumptive water. 7. The increase in the weight of grains in propertion to the weighte of root showed a tendency to increase depending on the depth of plot at each plot of the same weight of roots. The weight of roots and grains together increasezd in the order of kyun>kyunam>kyong, considering each treatment of experimental plot. The weight of grains was in relation to the minimum water content ratio during the midperiod of surface drainage and the average earth temperature was mainly affected by the minimum water content ratio because it was relatively increased in proportion to the water content ratio(at less than 40%) 8. The weight ratio of straw to grain showed an increasing tendency at the plot of shallow depth and had a relation of an inversely exponental function to the weight of roots. At the same depth of plot except the 15cm plot, the weight ratio of straw to grain was increased in proportion to the depth of consumptive water. The weight of grains was increased as the depth of consumptive water was increased to some extent, but at the same time the weight of ratio of straw to grain was increased. 9. At a certain texture of soils the increase in the amount of the cracks depends on meteorological conditions, especially increase in amounts of pan evaporation. So if it rains during the progressing of field drying the cracks largely decrease. The amount of cracks of clay soil had relation of inversely exponental function to the water content ratio(at more than 25%). The maximum depth of crack kept generally a constant value at less than 30% of water content ratio. 10. The cone index showed the tendency that it was propertional to the amount of cracks within a certain limit but more or less inversely proportional over a certain limit. The water content ratio at the limit may be about 25%. 11. The increase in the cone index with the progressing of time after final surface drainage showed the tendency that it was proportional to the depth of consumptive water at the last half of growing period. Based on the same depth of if the cone index in the kyunam plot was much larger than in the other two plots and that in the kyong plot was much smaller than in the kyun plott, as long as the depth of plot was deeper, especially in the 35-kyong plot. 12. In the light of a situation where water content ratio of soil decreased and the cone index increased after final surface drainage the porogress of the field dryness was much more rapid in the kyunam plot than in the kyong plot and the kyun plot, especially slowest in the kyong plot. In the plot with deeper zone the progress was much slower. The progress requiring the value of the cone index, $2.5kg/cm^2$, that working machinary can move easily on the field changed with the time of final surface drainage and the amount of rainfall, but without nay rain it required, in the kyunam plot, about 44mm in total amount of pan evaporation and more than 50mm in the other two plots. Therefore the drying in the kyunam plot was generally more rapid in the kyunam plot was generally more rapid over 2days than in the kyun plot, and especially may be more rapid over 5days than in the 35-kyong plot.