Dissertations

"Business Format Franchising is thought to be successful because of the application of a formulaic approach prescribed by the franchisor. The relationship between franchisor and franchisee is based on the uniformity built into the contractual relationship and operations manual. Despite the pressure to conform, franchisee outcomes still vary even within a system. This study examines the interaction between franchisor control and franchisee personality as a predictor of franchisee outcomes.

"Essays in this dissertation study firms' behavior in different market contexts and how firm behavior at the individual level may lead to systemic patterns at the industry level. In the first essay, it is shown that whether or not the strategic effect of raising downstream market prices can be strengthened through a longer vertical chain depends on the type of contracts signed between upstream and downstream layers.

"Franchising is one of the most understudied areas of entrepreneurship (Fenwick and Strombom, 1998) despite the economic significance and international scale of franchise activity. This thesis aims to redress this neglect by examining business format franchise systems in the UK. The research focuses on three key geographical issues. Paradoxically, geographical dimensions of franchise activity have not been acknowledged in past research despite the fact that franchising is inherently geographical and issues of expansion, location, territory and local environment are central to franchising.

"The study's purpose was to compare the degree of success of entrepreneurs within a franchising system with their personal characteristics, as well as to examine the offices they own and characteristics of the environment in which these owners operate. This was done in order to identify the factors affecting their success. The study's uniqueness stemmed from the unusual sample composition: owners of 89 businesses located in 35 U.S. states.

"The Mexican retail sector is characterized by the existence of a great number of small semi-formal shops. Because these small businesses are typically located in structures that are all but indistinguishable from those of houses, store owners traditionally employ vivid colors and handpainted advertising art to communicate their retail function and to advertise the goods and services they sell.

"Grouping existing providers under a franchised brand, supported by training, advertising, and supplies, is a potentially important way of improving access and assuring quality to some types of clinical medical services.

"The primary purpose of this study was to explore a model that examines the relationships among the external environment, entrepreneurial strategy, mechanistic-organic structure and financial performance of restaurant franchisors from the perspective of franchisees. The final structural model indicated that restaurant franchisees perceive that franchisors' entrepreneurial strategy makes a highly positive contribution to franchisors' financial performance. The external environment is perceived to have a negative impact on franchisor's financial performance.

"This dissertation examines the following three issues that are relevant to retailers. In the first essay, we examine category management from an analytical perspective. The practice of category management involves a strategic alliance between a retailer and a leading national brand at the product category level, where the retailer delegates considerable decision-making authority to the manufacturer of this brand. Facing demanding challenges in the marketplace, retailers have recently adopted this strategic innovation of managing their product categories.

"The virtual organization has emerged as a result of the availability of information technology. One business model well suited to the virtual form is franchising. Since the success of franchise organizations is highly dependent on communication effectiveness, these organizations are beginning to adopt technology—namely, private corporate networks called intranets and extranets—to support electronic communication. This research study examines the effects of electronic communication channels on communication patterns within franchise organizations.

"A franchising system can be understood as a group of assets. In our investigation we have divided these assets in resources of capabilities. The resources are the basic assets needed to compete in the franchising industry. The capabilities are the internal assets that allow a superior coordination and exploitation of those basic resources. The resources are the sine qua non condition to survive in an industry, they are assets required to achieve competitive parity. The capabilities are superior assets; they are the source of the competitive advantages enjoyed by the company.

"Due to profound impact on issues such as managerial capacity and control over resources, choices of organizational forms affect firm growth and survival. Such decisions of strategic importance, therefore, should be closely tied-in with emphases firms place on different goals. The current study investigated the link between multiple franchisor goals and different forms of franchising. In establishing that link, arguments centered on dimensionality of agency problems and multiple levels of agents inherent in most agency relationships.

"This dissertation assesses the employment effects associated with thirty-five instances of major league sports franchise relocation that have occurred over the past thirty years. It begins with an overview of location theory and a general history of local economic development, and relates the phenomenon of franchise relocation and stadium development to these concepts.

"Positive corporate reputation is an effective mechanism to maintain or accomplish competitive advantage. Retailer reputation, which is intangible, durable, and collective reputation of retailer chains or franchise companies, is likely to affect shopping behavior. This research discovers that retailer reputation has significant impacts on shopping expenditure, travel time, and frequencies of store patronage.

"This dissertation contributes theory and empirical evidence on the determinants of market structure in food services, where establishment-level scale economies are small and market power is diffuse. A central question in industrial organization asks what factors shape the distribution of ownership and profits when firms interact in the market. Theories of firm boundaries analyze the tradeoffs in common versus fragmented ownership. Theories of industry structure study how technology and demand characteristics affect the relative sizes of firms.

"This thesis presents a theory of retail chains. A retail chain is defined as a set of spatially distributed stores selling a common product and sharing a common brandname. The theory shows that economies of scale in production and transportation costs are necessary, but not sufficient, as an explanation of such chains, for these two factors alone cannot explain spatial branding—the sharing of a common brandname across a set of spatially distributed stores.

"The objective of this study is two fold: (1) determine the factors affecting a franchisee's selection between an international vis-à-vis a domestic franchising operation, and (2) determine the factors affecting the resulting success of the franchisee. The research in this area has primarily focused on the benefits to the franchisor in rapidly expanding its international market position through leveraging its brand name and business processes, and utilizing the capital and local management of its franchisees.

"This dissertation offers a strategic perspective on franchising. More specifically, this research study examines two related strategic issues that have not received much attention in the existing literature. First, is the franchise governance structure better suited to the pursuit of certain types of strategies, rather than others? Second, how does the franchise form have an impact on the adaptability of organizations over time?

"This dissertation empirically investigates organizational choice decisions in the franchising arena. Two central questions are explored. First, what explains the existing variation in system ownership mix—i.e., what factors determine whether a particular unit will be company-owned or franchised? And second, what explains the diversity of existing franchise agreements—i.e., what factors influence the specific contractual terms adopted by individual franchise systems?

"This study examines multi-unit franchising in the domestic fast-food industry from the franchisee's perspective by comparing it to single-unit franchising, and assessing the advantages of a multi-unit approach. The data were obtained in retrospective surveys. Two control groups' prospective perceptions were used to validate the retrospective data. This study represents a first attempt to integrate some previously unrelated aspects of franchising research from different disciplines. The major findings are as follows.