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Through an exploratory study, based on interviews with retail franchisees and franchisers belonging to the British Franchise Association, the operational nature of the relationship between franchisee and franchiser is explored. The views of franchisees and franchisers on the nature and level of their respective responsibilities throughout the relationship are sought, and differences in perceptions are pinpointed. The early findings suggest that, whilst apparently a franchise is an opportunity for a new entrant with no previous business experience, the whole process from vetting and training, through to trading, is in fact based on the assumption that the entrant is familiar with general business practice.

Many US‐based franchisers have expanded into international markets during the past two decades. However, a vast majority is still confined to the domestic market. Domestic franchisers are focused on and their international outlook is examined. In particular, the reasons why most US franchisers have not extended internationally, the extent of their disposition towards overseas expansion, and the attributes associated with prospective future international franchisers are explored.

Discusses a recent study into the level of satisfaction experienced by franchisees in the Australian restaurant sector. A model of consumer buying behaviour was used to identify the characteristics of both franchisers and franchisees which contribute to owner‐manager satisfaction with the purchase and operation of a franchised small business. The post‐purchase intentions of franchisees, were also investigated. Based on the survey findings from nine companies and 127 of their franchisee owner‐managers, provides prognostic and diagnostic frameworks to assist both franchisers and franchisees in their selection of a suitable business partner and in specifying appropriate remedial action in marginal franchised outlets.

This work proposes to test the C‐40 deontological code of collective orientation specifically for franchise associations. The literature review revealed a lack of studies about this type of codes.

This code adopts a semi‐normative approach in trying to standardize what form a deontological code of a franchise association should take. The study has been developed from an international perspective, making easier its spread and generalization. Furthermore, a novel methodology in this area has been applied to test the code: “The Experton Theory”.

As a consequence, from the review of ethical and deontological codes from franchise associations of 46 countries, some associations' statutes and the laws about franchising in some countries, 29 topics were identified. Additionally, 11 more have been added to these contents, making 40 items which conform with what should be integrated into whatever franchising deontological code.

The main limitations of this work refer to the proposition and validation of some questions included in the C‐40 code. Specifically, some of them show opinion divergences of the experts' answers over 25 percent.

The proposed code might be used as a background for franchise associations at an international level. It encourages the increase of ethical and business contents in the existing codes and, therefore, the improvement of the relationships among franchisers, franchisees and the rest of the stakeholders.

This study is focused on a scarcely treated topic in the literature: deontological codes in franchising. In addition, it has been developed from an international perspective, making its spread and generalization easier.

Discusses the issue of power in franchise systems and the consequences it has on the relationships between manufacturers/franchisers and dealers/franchisees. Attention is paid to the training issue, as it is a significant variable in the “franchise package” which is provided by the franchiser to the franchisees, and through the literature proves to be a determining source of power possessed and employed by the manufacturer/franchiser over the dealer/franchisee. The literature review shows that there has been relatively little academic research on this issue. Training has been researched as part of the “assistance” or “general support” provided by the manufacturer, but not as a factor in its own right. An analysis of the current trends characterising the training provisions within the UK car industry and their implications on power relationships between manufacturers and dealers is presented. Training appears to be a source of power possessed and employed by the car manufacturers and, thus, it confirms that the car manufacturers highly control and influence the training area.

As franchisees are perceived to be independent and self employed entrepreneurs, their ongoing development is frequently overlooked or poorly managed; particularly compared with the development opportunities for corporate staff in their support offices. The concern is that franchisees do not prioritise their own professional development due to their inability to diagnose and source appropriate training, their focus on immediate operational needs and a lack of free time to undergo development activities. As primary income generators of franchise businesses; organisational effectiveness and growth of the entire organisation rests on the abilities of the franchisees. This article examines one training program offered to franchisees at a major Australian franchise organisation. Through a survey of franchisees, some important lessons have been learned regarding the nature, scope and design of development initiatives for franchisees and some recommendations are provided to better manage franchisee development for the benefit of the entire organisation.

Uses comprehensive data on the geographical and industry distribution of company‐owned and franchised outlets in franchise chains to test hypotheses on the ownership fror choice in US state markets. Comfirms the importance of geographical factors, associating company ownership with urbanization and/or higher population densities, an therefore concluding that in these cases monitoring cost are lower. Concludes further that franchising supplement the financing of the chain and is particularly useful in achieving rapid growth.

One of the most important factors for the success of an organization is the quality of its managers. However, this is a rather general statement, because there are many different types of managers with different work styles. This begs the question: are all types of managers, regardless of their work styles, important to organizational success or only managers with specific work styles? This study aims to investigate the answer to this question by examining the relationship between two specific elements of managers' work styles – the role a manager plays in the work team and the preferred manner of change management a manager applies – and their effect on the level of performance of their organization, as measured by the high-performance organization (HPO) framework.

This study was part of a larger study into the drivers of success of franchise supermarkets in The Netherlands. A questionnaire was constructed, in which, among others, the following were explored: the level of performance (according to the HPO Framework), the preferred team role of the franchiser (using the Belbin team role model) and the change management approach of the franchiser (using De Caluwe and Vermaak's color theory). The questionnaire was sent to 400 Dutch supermarket franchisers, and the data received were subject to statistical analysis.

The study results clearly indicated that certain types of managers are important to organizational success in the supermarket sector. There are specific types of managers – in the sense that these managers have specific roles they play and specific change styles they apply – that seem to be more effective in creating and maintaining an HPO. These roles, as described by Belbin, are chairman and plant; the change style is De Caluwe and Vermaak's color red.

The study results add to the literature on high performance and HPOs, because team roles and color change styles have not been related to the factors for high performance to date.

Although the fact that certain types of managers, in certain contexts, are more effective than others is not a new finding, this is the first time specific team roles and a specific change style have been found that would enable managers to create and maintain an HPO.

The aim of this article is to provide solutions to protect the weaker party in management and distribution contracts, especially in the field of franchising.

The paper is based on a review of literature, legislation and practices concerning management and franchise contracts. The regulation of this field at a national level consists of laws that are both private and mandatory in nature. Certain questions are raised concerning the obligatory nature of regulations when applied to the management of international franchise contracts.

This article studies the question of whether the imperative application of laws to international contract management is appropriate. These contracts are concluded through the form of adhesion contracts, which have been prewritten by the dominant party and by which the adherent, the distributor, the franchisee or the agent, are placed in a weaker legal position. Considering the absence of international tuitive rules, this article suggests a way to guarantee the protection of parties in a weaker position.

This research provides entrepreneurs, managers and other members of the business community with legal tools and mechanisms for the protection of the franchisee's position.

This approach may well be helpful in finding solutions to legal issues that are of great importance in the negotiation of service contracts, as a way to overcome the difficulty of finding solid arguments to extend the rules that protect consumers and workers in service agreements.

The Dutch supermarket industry is dominated by a small number of powerful companies which capture the majority of sales and which compete fiercely with each other. This competition is mainly quality based, in the sense of offering increasingly more products of higher quality and striving for better distribution mechanisms. Interestingly there does not seem to be much attention for the quality of the internal supermarket organisation, i.e. quality of people, internal processes, and performance reporting. Thus there seems to be a gap in both current literature and the quality improvement attention of supermarkets which needs to be addressed, to uncover new sources of improvement. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this paper, the authors introduce the high-performance organisation (HPO) framework, a validated technique for evaluating the strength of the internal organisation of companies and for proposing quality improvements. The aim of the research is to test whether the HPO Framework can be used to analyse the strength and performance of supermarkets and to come up with recommendations for improvement. A questionnaire into the drivers of success of supermarkets was constructed which was send to 400 supermarket franchisers, and the received data were subsequently analysed.

On average the participating supermarkets are well-performing but they cannot yet be classified as high performing according to the HPO Framework. The supermarkets with the highest HPO scores indeed achieve better financial results (both in terms of revenue and margin achieved) than those of supermarkets with lower HPO scores. Finally, the authors find that larger supermarkets (in square metres floor area) outperform smaller supermarkets on all HPO factors.

As the HPO Framework is shown to be useful for not only analysing the performance of the supermarkets but also to generate recommendations for improvement of those supermarkets, individual supermarkets should evaluate their performance and operations using the HPO Framework to come up with improvement recommendations tailored to their own situation.

The HPO Framework has been applied during the past years in many sectors but not yet in the supermarket industry. Thus this research provides a unique insight in this industry. In addition academic researchers can use the HPO Framework to further investigate specific areas and factors of the supermarkets, in order to add to the literature on the quality of supermarkets.