• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.23 no.10
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• pp.189-201
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• 2018

This study analyzed the effect of core competence of supervisor on the satisfaction, loyalty, business performance of franchisees and business performance of franchisor. And the purpose of this study is to solve the most problematic issues in franchise business such as poor sales of franchisee, inadequate measures for activating sluggish stores, closing rate increase of franchisee, dispute between a franchisee and franchisor. The results of this study will be used as data for the success of Franchisor's business operation and for the change and development of the franchise industry. In this study, 168 CEOs and employees in the franchise industry were surveyed. Through previous research and expert interviews, we designed the core competency factors of franchise supervisors into seven areas: check, consulting, coordination, promotion, counseling, communication, and control. In order to verify the hypothesis of the research, the relationship between variables was verified by simple regression analysis and multiple regression analysis. Key result of the study are as follows. First, the core competency of the supervisor has a positive relationship with the franchisee's satisfaction. Second, the core competence of the supervisor has a positive relationship with the franchisee's loyalty. Third, franchisee's satisfaction has a positive effect on loyalty. Fourth, franchisee's satisfaction positively affects the business performance of franchisee and franchisor. Fifth, franchisee's loyalty positively affects the business performance of franchisee and franchisor.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.77-86
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• 2008

This study investigated how the franchisor's supportive activities influence the franchisee's loyalty and consequently their perceived performance in the franchised restaurants. The study found that the franchisor could increase the franchisee's loyalty through supportive activities and the franchise performance in results. However, the franchisor's advertising and promotion supports did not influence the franchisee's loyalty increase, but increase the franchisee's perceived performance. In summary, supportive activities such as efficient franchise system and advisory activities could be a starting point towards high franchise performance.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.25-35
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• 2019

Purpose - The major objective of this study was to investigate the effect of franchisor's (economic and philanthropic) CSR in inspiring franchisee's loyalty for the franchisor. Another aim of this investigation also was to clarify the mediating role of economic and social satisfaction in the relationship between franchisor's CSR and franchisee's loyalty. Research design, data, and methodology - This study explores the structural relationship between franchisor's CSR and franchisee's loyalty and in these relationships, the mediating role of relationship satisfaction. Data were gathered from employees(above manager) in food-service franchisee companies in Seoul, Korea. The questionnaires were distributed to managers of the franchise stores. A total of 251 questionnaires were collected. Data management and analysis were performed using SPSS 21.O and SmartPLS 3.0. Evaluation of measurement model and structural model was carried out using confirmatory factor analysis and correlation analysis. Result - The results of this study show as follows. First, economic CSR had positive effects on economic satisfaction and social satisfaction. Second, philanthropic CSR had positive effects on social satisfaction. Third, economic satisfaction and social satisfaction had positive effects on franchisee's loyalty to the franchisor. Conclusions - The important implications of this study have as follows. First, this study has found that economic CSR can create a high economic satisfaction and social satisfaction of franchisee. Second, this findings suggest that the philanthropic CSR can improve the social satisfaction of franchisee. Third, this results demonstrate, for the first time, that the economic satisfaction and social satisfaction of franchisees can play a crucial role to improve their loyalty for the franchisor and pursue mutual development by maintaining the stable business relationship with a franchisor. In this investigation there are at least three limitations. First, Because the research sample is limited to the foodservice franchisee in Seoul, it is not possible to be representativeness of the national franchisee. Second, CSR activities are mostly focused on large franchise companies. Therefore, there is a limit to the research approach. Finally, this study examined the effect of economic CSR and philanthropic CSR on the loyalty of franchisors, but in the future study, it is necessary to analyze the relationship between CSR and loyalty of franchise companies by collecting specific quantitative data such as re-contract rate and management performance of franchisees.

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

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.21-31
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• 2018

Purpose - Recently, the franchise business has made remarkable progress, but many conflicts have occurred. From this perspective, this paper explains how to improve the long - term relationship between franchisor and franchisee by integrating the relationship between franchisor of franchise business and franchisee. This study aims to identify the franchisee's economic and social satisfaction and to examine their influences on calculative and affective commitment, and loyalty. At the end of this paper, theoretical and managerial implication were suggested. Research design, data, and methodology - The data were collected from owners and store managers in franchisees located in Seoul, Korea. The trained researchers contacted owners and managers of the franchise stores. The questionaires were distributed to owners and managers consented to respond. The collected questionnaires were used for the final analysis of 324 copies(243 store owners and 81 store managers), except for 26 copies of the untrustworthy response out of 350 copies. The data were analyzed with SPSS, 21.0 and SmartPls 3.0 Result - The results of the study are as follows. First, economic satisfaction effects both calculative and affective commitment, but social satisfaction does not. Second, both calculative and affective commitment have positive effects on loyalty. Third, economic satisfaction has a positive impact on loyalty, but social satisfaction does not. Conclusions - The implications of this study are following as: From the theoretical perspective, this study analyze the satisfaction and commitment of the franchisee from the multidimensional perspective by analyzing the effects of the franchisee on two dimensions of economic and social satisfaction and on calculative and affective commitment. That is, this study explains the trade-off between economica and social satisfaction, and between calculative and affective commitment. From the managerial perspective, the results of this study suggest that the economic satisfaction of the franchise headquarters felt by franchisees should be prioritized over social satisfaction. Especially at the early stage of the contract, economic satisfaction should be given priority over social satisfaction. However, since affective and calculative commitment have a significant effect on loyalty, social satisfaction factors should not be excluded by focusing on only economic ones. In other words, the franchisors should not only think of franchisees as a source of sales and profits, but should respect franchisees and maintain loyal relationships with friends.

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

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.7-17
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• 2020

Purpose - As the competition in the foodservice franchise industry and the market becomes fierce and the entry barrier is lowered, the foodservice franchisor and franchisees strive to increase their competitive advantage in the market. Therefore, the franchisor and franchisees use experience management strategies to enhance the positive experiences of customers visiting the stores. In this regard, this study examines the effects of customer-oriented activities (physical-, social-, health-, and service-oriented activities) on utilitarian and hedonic values, and loyalty using stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model and value-expectancy theory. Research design, data, methodology - The data were collected from panels of online survey company, who visited a foodservice franchisee within last month. The survey was conducted for about 15 days from March 7, 2019 to March 21, 2019, and about 3,500 e-mails and messages were distributed to ask for the survey. A total 412 responded and completed the questionnaires. Of the 412 completed questionaires, 12 were discarded due to missing and misinformation data and 400 were retained for further data analysis. Results --The results showed that social oriented activities, health oriented activities, and service oriented activities had positive effects on hedonic value, while physical oriented activities did not have a significant effect on hedonic value. Health oriented activities and service oriented activities had positive effects on utilitarian value, while physical oriented activities and social oriented activities had no significant effects on utilitarian value. Hedonic and utilitarian values also have a positive effect on loyalty. Conclusions - First, food service franchises should provide services and menus in consideration of the health of customers. When a customer visits the store, franchisee should provide more health-oriented food or materials and clean and comfortable conditions so as not to threaten the health of the customer. Second, the food service franchise must build a service-oriented system. Foodservice franchisor need to provide continuous service training not only to the franchisees, but also to the employees of the franchisees. Third, franchise should design a store where customers can form social exchanges through providing various information exchange to customers and making the store as a local community center.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.31-44
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• 2016

Purpose - This study aims to examine different impacts of franchisor's leadership and franchisee's marketing efforts on franchisee dissatisfaction and switching intentions, and to investigate how franchisee dissatisfaction plays a mediating role in the relationship between these constructs. This study attempted to fill the gap in the literature by treating the franchisee dissatisfaction as a mediator in the relationship between these constructs, identify how franchisor's leadership and franchisee's marketing efforts have effects on franchisee dissatisfaction, in turn, reduce switching intentions, and provide the managerial implications for building a long-term relationship to achieve mutual goals between franchisors and franchisees Research design, data, and methodology - In order to test the hypotheses, the data were collected from franchisees in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. The franchisee owners were informed about the purpose of this study by the trained interviewers. The respondents received a letter introducing the purpose of this study and another letter that the owners wrote to encourage their active participation. Among the 300 questionnaires distributed, 260 (86.7%) questionnaires were returned. Of those collected questionnaires, 6 uncompleted responses were excluded, and 254 questionnaires with an effective response rate of 84.7% were coded and analyzed using frequency, confirmatory factor analysis, and correlations analysis, and structural equation modeling with SPSS 21.0 and SmartPLS 3.0. Results - The findings of the study are as follows. First, franchisor leadership had a negative effect on franchisee dissatisfaction, but franchisee marketing efforts did not have a significant effect on franchisee dissatisfaction. Second, franchisee dissatisfaction had a positive effect on switching intentions. Third, franchisor leadership had a negative effect on switching intentions, but franchisee marketing efforts did not have a significant effect on switching intentions. Conclusions - This study researched the franchisor's leadership as a single factor of transformational leadership. Thus, it may have limits in measuring leadership. Future studies shall include emotional, loyal, and transactional leadership. In addition, the future studies shall also research the effect of franchisor's leadership and franchisees' marketing efforts on dissatisfaction and switching intentions. For example, the franchisor's relationship-oriented efforts can be a crucial parameter that reduces dissatisfaction and switching intentions.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.35-47
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• 2020

Purpose: In the highly competitive franchise market, the perceived entrepreneurial passion and emotions of customers are very important, because it impacts on the success of companies. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to suggest how the impact of the franchise entrepreneurial passion and positive emotions on the brand trust and loyalty of customers. Research design, data and methodology: This study analyzes data was collected through questionnaires on customer(n=480) who had visited franchise restaurants. Analysis of used collected data was based on the mix method using quantitative and qualitative comparative analysis. Results: The quantitative analysis results showed inventing passion, developing passion, positive emotions that perceived by customers have a positive impact on brand trust. On the other hand, founding passion did not have an impact on loyalty in quantitative analysis. but when combined with developing passion in qualitative comparison analysis, but when combined with developing passion in qualitative comparison, that became the sufficient condition of high loyalty of customers. Conclusions: The franchisor of the Korean franchise industry is indiscriminately overusing the founding franchisees, causing social problems. In this situation, founding passion can have a negative impact on customers. Therefore, the franchisors must have management capabilities by strictly managing the founding rules of the franchisee and disclosing the corporate vision.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.37-63
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• 2012

In franchise business, exclusive sales territory (sometimes EST in table) protection is a very important issue from an economic, social and political point of view. It affects the growth and survival of both franchisor and franchisee and often raises issues of social and political conflicts. When franchisee is not familiar with related laws and regulations, franchisor has high chance to utilize it. Exclusive sales territory protection by the manufacturer and distributors (wholesalers or retailers) means sales area restriction by which only certain distributors have right to sell products or services. The distributor, who has been granted exclusive sales territories, can protect its own territory, whereas he may be prohibited from entering in other regions. Even though exclusive sales territory is a quite critical problem in franchise business, there is not much rigorous research about the reason, results, evaluation, and future direction based on empirical data. This paper tries to address this problem not only from logical and nomological validity, but from empirical validation. While we purse an empirical analysis, we take into account the difficulties of real data collection and statistical analysis techniques. We use a set of disclosure document data collected by Korea Fair Trade Commission, instead of conventional survey method which is usually criticized for its measurement error. Existing theories about exclusive sales territory can be summarized into two groups as shown in the table below. The first one is about the effectiveness of exclusive sales territory from both franchisor and franchisee point of view. In fact, output of exclusive sales territory can be positive for franchisors but negative for franchisees. Also, it can be positive in terms of sales but negative in terms of profit. Therefore, variables and viewpoints should be set properly. The other one is about the motive or reason why exclusive sales territory is protected. The reasons can be classified into four groups - industry characteristics, franchise systems characteristics, capability to maintain exclusive sales territory, and strategic decision. Within four groups of reasons, there are more specific variables and theories as below. Based on these theories, we develop nine hypotheses which are briefly shown in the last table below with the results. In order to validate the hypothesis, data is collected from government (FTC) homepage which is open source. The sample consists of 1,896 franchisors and it contains about three year operation data, from 2006 to 2008. Within the samples, 627 have exclusive sales territory protection policy and the one with exclusive sales territory policy is not evenly distributed over 19 representative industries. Additional data are also collected from another government agency homepage, like Statistics Korea. Also, we combine data from various secondary sources to create meaningful variables as shown in the table below. All variables are dichotomized by mean or median split if they are not inherently dichotomized by its definition, since each hypothesis is composed by multiple variables and there is no solid statistical technique to incorporate all these conditions to test the hypotheses. This paper uses a simple chi-square test because hypotheses and theories are built upon quite specific conditions such as industry type, economic condition, company history and various strategic purposes. It is almost impossible to find all those samples to satisfy them and it can't be manipulated in experimental settings. However, more advanced statistical techniques are very good on clean data without exogenous variables, but not good with real complex data. The chi-square test is applied in a way that samples are grouped into four with two criteria, whether they use exclusive sales territory protection or not, and whether they satisfy conditions of each hypothesis. So the proportion of sample franchisors which satisfy conditions and protect exclusive sales territory, does significantly exceed the proportion of samples that satisfy condition and do not protect. In fact, chi-square test is equivalent with the Poisson regression which allows more flexible application. As results, only three hypotheses are accepted. When attitude toward the risk is high so loyalty fee is determined according to sales performance, EST protection makes poor results as expected. And when franchisor protects EST in order to recruit franchisee easily, EST protection makes better results. Also, when EST protection is to improve the efficiency of franchise system as a whole, it shows better performances. High efficiency is achieved as EST prohibits the free riding of franchisee who exploits other's marketing efforts, and it encourages proper investments and distributes franchisee into multiple regions evenly. Other hypotheses are not supported in the results of significance testing. Exclusive sales territory should be protected from proper motives and administered for mutual benefits. Legal restrictions driven by the government agency like FTC could be misused and cause mis-understandings. So there need more careful monitoring on real practices and more rigorous studies by both academicians and practitioners.