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Franchising has become an increasingly popular overseas expansion strategy for companies in various industries. A successful development in a transition economy such as Serbia has been exclusively associated with McDonald’s, which raises concerns about the ability of other international franchises to penetrate the Serbian market. The purpose of this paper is to explore the customer-based constraints that may hamper the spread of franchising in a post-communist country. Specifically, factors such as country-of-origin (COO) effects, longevity and brand localness/globalness that may affect consumers’ preferences are considered.

This paper uses mixed methods, that is to say a combination of qualitative and semi-quantitative approaches. Primary data were collected using (45) semi-structured interviews with local customers. The (success) story of McDonald’s in Serbia serves as the reference point.

The findings suggest that COO and localness are both relevant in explaining consumer preferences. Longevity signals the ability to adhere to international standards as well as regular local engagement. The results also stress that, contrary to widespread belief, global franchise names do not have an advantage over local players.

Further investigation is needed to empirically examine the relationships between several key variables identified in the present study (longevity, COO, tradition, patriotism, trust, emotional attachment, perceived quality, authenticity, satisfaction, behavioral intentions). These may influence franchise system penetration and, ultimately, its performance.

Although post-communist countries have become highly appealing for international fast-food and coffee-shop chains, these countries are hard-to-please environments for setting-up and operating a franchise business. These findings advocate franchises to find the right balance between their global name and a quick integration of indigenous attributes to compensate for their late entry. Franchise marketing managers must develop a brand narrative that includes both local brand associations and global/international standards to increase franchise brand awareness and generate a positive consumer attitude.

Despite the call for more studies on franchising in emerging markets and their realities, not much attention has been paid to (local) customer-related constraints. The inclusion of a temporal perspective appeared to be highly relevant in investigating the potential effect of longevity on the local development of the franchise system. Moreover, there is a scarcity of scholarly branding research in the franchising sector. Local competition, although a neglected dimension in prior studies, has been examined through consumer preferences toward global and local brands. The chosen research methodology responds to the recent call of scholars for more diverse approaches. Finally, as a post-communist, transition and emerging economy, Serbia serves as a stimulating and yet uncovered research setting, given its tumultuous history with Western countries, as well as the long successful history of the McDonald’s franchise.

Although international franchising has occurred in East Asia over the past 20 years, surprisingly very little academic research has been undertaken to understand key dynamics of this marketing phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to examine franchise resources, which is a key construct in the internationalization of retail franchising.

A multiple case study approach has been adopted to generate rich data designed to aid understanding of the complexities inherent within such an international marketing relationship. The data were drawn from five US food service retail franchises, which are household brands across East Asia, operating in Singapore.

This study presents several interesting findings for the retail franchise industry. First, consistent with resource scarcity theory, international franchising relationship begins with a high degree of franchise dependency on the local franchisees. Next, international franchisors will be well served to select their overseas franchisees with strong financial resources to engage in rapid expansion, good contacts to secure early stores in prime retail locations and well‐proven local knowledge to modify the concept to suit particular market needs.

Findings from this study have important managerial implications for international retail franchisors on how to effectively select franchisees to successfully launch and manage their brands in East Asia.

This empirical study has made a major contribution in adding to the limited body of empirical knowledge on franchisee selection in international retail franchising, particularly in East Asia. It is hoped that this paper will encourage more academics to investigate why certain international retail franchise concepts perform relatively better in East Asia than others.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between organizational culture and brand identity in the retail food and beverage industry and also to explore how independent retail coffee shops and cafes build their brands. The evolution of coffee drinking in many new markets is following a pattern similar to the one witnessed in New Zealand.

A qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews, field notes, photographs and empirical material was carried out with 15 independent coffee shops and nine franchise coffee shops in Christchurch, New Zealand. In total five different approaches were adopted to provide diverse observations to compliment every angle of the research setting by using triangulation.

The findings from this research reveal that an appropriate brand name helps to ease the process of brand identity creation. The personality of the market leader strongly influences organizational culture, and a constant flow of updated business intelligence plays an important role in creating a distinctive brand identity. Internal marketing and personal values are key to constructing internal culture while the acculturation process plays an important role in developing internal culture and building brand identity.

Difficulty in getting participants was a major limitation because many employees/owners declined to take part in the research due to the nature of their work which required full attention to serve customers when the outlet is operating.

In previous years, research has focused on interaction between the organization and their customers (Hoeffler, 2003). This study extends previous research by investigating the internal culture of the organization and its relation to brand identity building within the organization.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the rise of South Africa's quick service restaurant (QSR) industry by examining the structural changes and competitive strategies driving the industry.

The paper uses Michael Porter's Five Forces and secondary data to describe the structural reorganization of South Africa's QSR industry and market positioning strategies being used to respond to the growing industry competition and global challenges.

The paper finds that South Africa's QSR industry has risen tremendously and has expanded globally. The evolving fast food market comprises South African franchises and multi‐national franchise corporations co‐existing with modern supermarkets, contract food caterers, and informal traders. The industry uses a mix of market coordination, operational and competitive strategies to counter the intense global competition. Further research is needed to examine the potential of information communication technologies in QSR industry market coordination and consumer willingness to pay for increased convenience, healthy products, sustainability, and food traceability.

South Africa leads the continent in mobile phone penetration and there is scope for QSR managers to integrate mobile commerce when dealing with QSR industry customers and other stakeholders. South Africa's fast food franchises should craft strategies that adapt menus to local cultures and ethnic foods in other countries. With increasing attention on food safety and traceability, South Africa's QSR firms could provide leadership in marketing high quality food and gain competitive advantages through positive industry image.

The paper addresses the highly topical issue of rising competition in the fast food industry and successful strategies being utilized by South African firms to penetrate both regional and global markets.

This study aims to explore the hidden connectivity among words by semantic network analysis, further identify salient factors accounting for customer satisfaction of coffee shops through analysis of online reviews and, finally, examine the moderating effect of business types of coffee shops on customer satisfaction.

Two typical major procedures of big data analytics in the hospitality industry were adopted in this research: one is data collection and the other is data analysis. In terms of data analysis, frequency analysis with text mining, semantic network analysis, CONCOR analysis for clustering and quantitative analysis with dummy variables were performed to dig new insights from online customer reviews both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Different factors were extracted from online customer reviews contributing to customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction, and among these factors, the brand-new factor “Sales event” was examined to be significantly associated with customer satisfaction. In addition, the moderating effect of business types on the relationship between “Value for money” and customer satisfaction was verified, indicating differences between customers from different types of coffee shops.

The present study broadened the research directions of coffee shops by adopting online customer reviews through relative analytics. New dimensions such as “Sales event” and detailed categorization of “Coffee quality”, “Interior” and “Physical environment” were revealed, indicating that even new cognition could be generated with new data source and analytical methods. The industry professionals could develop their decision-making based on information from online reviews.

The present study used online reviews to understand coffee shop costumer experience and satisfaction through a set of analytical methods. The textual reviews and numeric reviews were concerned simultaneously to unearth qualitative perception and quantitative data information for customers of coffee shops.

本研究的目的在于通过网络评论分析了解网络评论中关键词之间的隐含联系, 然后探究影响咖啡店顾客满意度的因素, 最后验证不同咖啡店经营类型的调节作用。

本研究使用文本挖掘的频率分析、语义网络分析、聚类分析和通过虚拟变量进行的定量分析, 从网络评论中挖掘对咖啡店行业的新见解。此外, 还检验了咖啡店经营类型的调节作用。

从网络评论中提取影响顾客满意度的不同因素, 探索出“销售活动”对顾客满意度的显著影响。同时, 相较于连锁咖啡店, 独立经营咖啡店对“物有所值”到顾客满足度的关系具有调节作用。  

本研究通过使用相关的分析方法对顾客网络评论进行分析, 拓宽了咖啡店研究的方向。研究结果发现“销售活动”和“咖啡品质”的细分等新方面, 揭示了利用新的数据源和分析方法可以为相关产业提供全新的认知。本研究的研究结果表明行业从业者可以根据顾客网络评论来制定相应的营销策略。

本研究利用网络顾客评论及相关分析方法, 了解顾客咖啡店体验及满意度。本研究同时利用文本评论和数字评论来挖掘和分析咖啡店顾客的定性感知和定量数据信息。

关键词咖啡店 在线顾客评论 文本挖掘 语义网络分析 经营类型

文章类型： 研究型论文

Este estudio intenta explorar las relaciones encubiertas de palabras, mediante el análisis de redes semánticas, pero aún más, identificar los factores destacados que explican la satisfacción de los clientes de las cafeterías a través del análisis de reseñas online y, por último, examinar el efecto moderador de los tipos de negocios de cafeterías en la satisfacción al cliente.

En esta investigación se adoptaron dos procedimientos principales de análisis de “Big Data” en la industria hotelera, uno es la recopilación de datos y el otro es el análisis de datos. En términos de análisis de datos, se efectuó un análisis de frecuencia con minado de texto (text mining), análisis de red semántica, análisis CONCOR para agrupamiento y análisis cuantitativo con variables ficticias para extraer nuevas perspectivas de las reseñas de los clientes online, tanto cualitativa como cuantitativamente.

Diferentes factores fueron extraídos de las reseñas de clientes online que contribuyen a la satisfacción o insatisfacción de estos y, entre estos factores, se examinó que el nuevo factor “Evento de Ventas” está significativamente asociado con la satisfacción al cliente. Además, se verificó el efecto moderador de los tipos de negocios entre la relación de “Valor por Dinero” y la satisfacción del cliente, indicando las diferencias entre los clientes de distintos tipos de cafeterías.

El presente estudio amplia la perspectiva de investigación de las cafeterías, al adoptar las reseñas de clientes online a través de un análisis relativo. Se revelaron nuevas dimensiones como “Evento de Ventas” y la categorización detallada de la “Calidad del Café”, “Interior” y “Entorno Físico”, lo que indica que se podría generar una nueva cognición con una nueva fuente de datos y métodos analíticos. Los profesionales de la industria podrían llevar a cabo la toma de decisiones en función de la información obtenida a través de las reseñas en línea.

El presente estudio utilizó reseñas de clientes online para comprender la experiencia y satisfacción de los clientes de las cafeterías a través de un conjunto de métodos analíticos. Las revisiones numéricas y de texto se tomaron en cuenta simultáneamente para revelar la percepción tanto cualitativa como cuantitativa de la información de los clientes de las cafeterías.

Cafetería, Reseñas de clientes online, Minado de texto, Análisis de redes semánticas, Tipos de negocios

Trabajo de investigación

The purpose of this study is to investigate how service brand loyalty can be enhanced through customer involvement, based on involvement theory and symbolic interaction theory as theoretical backgrounds.

This study investigated how service brand loyalty can be enhanced through customer involvement, based on involvement theory and symbolic interaction theory as theoretical backgrounds.

Results identified customer–brand identification and service value influenced both service brand involvement and service brand-decision involvement. However, self-congruity only influenced customers’ service brand-decision involvement. Results also confirmed that customer involvement positively influenced service brand satisfaction and service brand loyalty.

This study contributed to involvement and brand loyalty research, investigating the role of customer involvement on service brand loyalty.

Results suggested what factors could enhance brand loyalty to gain competitive advantages.

This study proposed and empirically investigated ways to enhance brand loyalty in the context of the coffee shop industry.

This case describes the situation surrounding the entrance of Starbucks International Coffee into the Kuwait marketplace. It requires students to consider relevant small business and entrepreneurship issues in determining an appropriate response. These issues include: international joint ventures, culture, gender issues, marketing channels, and cross‐cultural management issues.

This paper proposes a knowledge-exchange framework for value co-creation in franchise network.

This conceptual study integrates literature on franchising, knowledge based view of the firm, absorptive capacity, and service dominant logic to propose a theoretical framework for value co-creation in franchising using knowledge as an operant resource.

The proposed framework suggests that in a franchise network value is co-created by three key actors – franchisor, franchisees, and the customers; the operant resource these key actors bring to the value creation process is knowledge; and the absorptive capacity of principal actors and the appropriation hazard affect the flow and sharing of knowledge.

The authors hope that the proposed knowledge exchange framework for value co-creation in franchise networks provides an impetus for future research in this critical aspect of franchising – i.e. viewing knowledge as an operant resource and viewing the three actors as resource integrators and co-creators of value.

The proposed framework suggests that managers in franchise industry should stop looking at consumers and franchisees as passive operand resources, but look at them as operant resource. They should also alter their perspective about the source of competitive advantage, with the focus shifting to knowledge as the operant resource.

The study takes a new approach to value creation in a franchising network by introducing the concept of knowledge as an operant source.

The use of various forms of cooperative sales promotions such as intracompany and intercompany multibrand promotions is on the ascendance, particularly among manufacturers and marketers of frequently purchased packaged consumer products. This article provides an overview of various forms of cooperative sales promotions, objectives that firms strive to realize through cooperative sales promotions, and other issues. In addition, from the standpoint of improving marketing productivity, the need for greater focus on the consumer franchise building potential of various sales promotion tools is highlighted.

This research theoretically conceptualises the notion of “third place” within the setting of chain bookshops. The widespread adoption of coffee franchises and comfortable seating has developed the bookshop as a leisurely setting. Underpinning the discussion in current retail marketing theory, the research aims to explore how the understanding of “third place” has changed with the passage of time and to examine whether chain bookshops can be called third places.

The methodological approach is largely qualitative, drawing upon interviews with bookshop managers with regard to their strategic aims, and using focus groups to discuss consumers' bookshop experiences. The research also draws upon quantitative data, i.e. face-to-face questionnaires and online surveys.

The research concludes that while consumer experience of chain bookshops is positive, they cannot be called a “third place” due to the lack of conversation therein. Nevertheless, an important caveat exists – the presence of an integral coffee shop encourages socialising among bookshop customers.

The project's scope is limited to chain bookshops in the UK. Future work might look at third place or restorative provision in other retail settings or over a wider geographic spread.

The research has important implications and recommendations for managers of retail sites regarding the potential restorative qualities of bookshops, coffee shops and other retail environments.

This empirical research enhances scholarly understanding of the bookshop as a restorative space, highlighting an important advantage which traditional retailers have over internet retailers.