فرانچایزینگ مرز های تحقیقاتی برای قرن بیست و یکم

About four decades ago, during the formative years of the franchising industry, visionary authors like Oxenfeldt and Kelly (1968) and Ozanne and Hunt (1971) proposed a rich slate of research agenda which still continues to guide some of the contemporary scholarship in the franchising domain. This article (1) explicates some of the unique features of the franchising context that presumably inspired these pioneering authors, (2) discusses four established elements of ontology unique to franchising and isolates the remaining research gaps therein, (3) specifies a new slate of more contemporary research agenda for future scholarship, and (4) concludes with a brief discussion of the ten articles featured in this Special Issue of the Journal of Retailing dedicated to the theme of Franchising and Retailing.

Modern franchising in USA dates back to at least the 1850s when Isaac Singer attempted to increase the distribution of his sewing machines by establishing a franchise system. Other examples of early American franchising include the franchising of soft-drink bottlers, automobile and truck dealerships and gasoline service stations. These latter sectors constitute what has been labeled as “product trade-name” or “traditional” franchising to distinguish it from the more recent emergent “business format” franchising (Baker and Dant 2008). The key differences lie in the complexity of relationships between franchisors and franchisees, and the modes of payments from franchisees to franchisors. In the product trade-name franchises, the franchisee functions virtually like an authorized dealer with some territorial exclusivity (e.g., Ford dealership, Shell Gas Station), and generally pays the franchisor based on gross margins realized from the sale of the branded merchandise. In business format franchises (e.g., Dunkin Donuts, Marriott's), on the other hand, the franchisee is expected to strictly follow a detailed operational regimen specified by the franchisor through an operations manual and pays franchisors through a variety of royalties and fees. The 1930s witnessed a period of rapid growth in business format franchising in the United States. During this time early American franchisors such as Howard Deering Johnson and Reginald Sprague began franchising their restaurant chains. The 1950s again saw a boom in franchising as massive numbers of fast food restaurants, diners and motel franchises opened up along the newly constructed interstate highway system. Some of the well-known franchises (and their inaugural years) include Kentucky Fried Chicken (1930), Dunkin Donuts (1950), Burger King (1954), and McDonald's (1955). Today, franchising is big business, and there are over 3,000 franchise systems in the USA (Franchise Facts 2011). This count represents 901,093 franchisees employing approximately 18 million people, in turn generating an economic output of over $2.1 trillion which equals about 40.9% of the U.S. retailing sector (see Table 2 and Appendix B discussed later). It is also an American invention that has been cited as one of the fastest growing U.S. exports to the world (House Committee on Small Business 1990); and it is arguably the fastest growing form of retailing in the world (Dant, Perrigot, and Cliquet 2008). Franchising is also somewhat unique from a public policy perspective in that it is a net net-foreign exchange earner. And since the franchisors’ earnings are based on royalties (typically expressed as a percent of franchisees’ sales) the franchising sector does not create future foreign competitors over time that come back to compete in the domestic economies à la the international product life cycle (IPLC)3 phenomenon (Gillespie, Jeannet, and Hennessey 2007). The rest of this paper is organized as follows. We begin with asserting certain self-evident characteristics of the franchising context. This is followed by a discussion of four well-known exemplars of ontology unique to the franchising context. Next we attempt to take a peek at the crystal ball and specify other research topics we fervently wish future franchising scholars will pursue. Finally, we briefly discuss the ten articles published in this Special Issue of Journal of Retailing dedicated to the theme of Franchising and Retailing.

Editing a special issue on the theme of Franchising and Retailing for the Journal of Retailing was indeed a rare honor, especially since the last time the Journal of Retailing featured a special issue on the theme of franchising was 43 years ago which was edited by Alfred R. Oxenfeldt. We of course live in a very different world today. The landscape of a nascent industry that Oxenfeldt and Kelly were writing about has given way to a maturing industry that has gone global. We all know the seminal impact his co-authored article titled “Will Successful Franchise Systems Ultimately Become Wholly-Owned Chains?” (published in that same issue) has had in shaping the research trajectory of franchising scholarship. Here is hoping this special issue too will impact franchising research in this brave new twenty-first century.