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The purpose of this paper is to offer a novel perspective on resale pricing in franchising, i.e. from a franchisee perspective, by combining legal and managerial considerations in the European context. The objective is to assess franchisee perceptions regarding resale pricing in their chains.

The authors adopt a qualitative approach and use 46 in-depth interviews with franchisees covering retail and service industries in the French market.

Many of the interviewed franchisees believe that joining a franchise chain involves respecting the recommended resale prices. For some of the franchisees, in link with the chain uniformity, imposing uniform resale prices throughout the chain represents a strength, because customers who visit different stores within the franchise chain expect to find consistent pricing. Moreover, many franchisees consider that their franchisors have some know-how that they use to set correct resale prices, taking into account the profit margin.

This research contributes to the literature on resale pricing in franchising, as well as the franchising literature in general, by combining legal and managerial considerations, adopting a franchisee perspective, covering retail and service industries and focusing on French and European markets.

This research can be viewed by franchise experts, franchisors, franchisees and franchisee candidates as a synthesis of resale price-related legal aspects, adopted practices and potential conflicts in franchise chains in the French market. It also highlights price-related practices to be avoided to prevent potential conflicts.

The subject of resale pricing in franchise chains is a hot topic, because of its link with customer attraction, chain uniformity, franchisor know-how, franchisee autonomy and the legal dimension.

The purpose of this paper is to show that football as a sacred experience is often raised, but has never led to an argued approach. Professional football (soccer) is a genuine societal phenomenon, both through the medias’ interest they cause and through the financial stakes that are related to it. It is common to read that football, through the passions it unleashes, for example in terms of tribal violence, has become a type of religion, with its believers (the fans) and its place of worship (the stadiums).

The authors reviewed the literature, research reports and electronic documents on professional football practices to understand the religious dimension of fan passion in Europe (ritualism, collective beliefs, using of totemic objects, etc.).

The paper suggests a reading grid of religions, founded on four interdependent dimensions (the Community, the Law, the Way and the Experience) and applies it to professional football by underlying its relevance in the singular context of sports show.

Beyond well-known economic stakes, the paper clarifies the football passion from a religious perspective and identifies the main pillars of the fan conversion process according to a heteronomous logic.

As franchisees are independent entrepreneurs, one important part of the business format that franchisors are not allowed to impose on their franchisees is resale prices. They are only allowed to indicate a recommended or a maximum price. This study aims to look further into the capabilities underlying the calculation of resale prices and suggests that price-setting is part of both the “business know-how” transferred to franchisees and the “organizational know-how,” that is, capabilities developed and kept at the franchisor level.

This study adopted a qualitative methodology with a total of 65 interviews, 19 with franchisors and 46 with franchisees, all operating in the French market.

The findings show that resale pricing is a process that involves know-how. The complexity of pricing leads to develop specialized and broad capabilities. The first type of know-how, i.e., business know-how transferred to franchisees, deals with operational implementation of recommended resale prices in the stores. The second type, i.e., organizational know-how, not transferred as a safeguard against opportunism, connects across other functions of the franchise chain such as R&D and communication.

This study confirms the existence and relevance of another kind of know-how apart from the business know-how that is transferred to the franchisees. Organizational know-how at the chain level, though often neglected, is a necessary determinant of sustaining a competitive advantage. This know-how is not transferred to the franchisees but contributes to the success and sustainability of the franchisor/franchisee relationship. Franchisors should thus work on improving their capabilities to better support their franchisees. Moreover, this study highlight the complexity and extreme importance of setting the right resale price.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to describe the current situation regarding alcohol use and consumption in relation with sport in France.

Design/methodology/approach – Based on a literature review, the authors describe the particular regulatory French context regarding alcohol sales, publicity and consumption around sport and analyze the relationships between alcohol and sport participation, and sporting events.

Findings – Despite an apparent strict legal frame, exemptions, margins of manoeuvre and non-applications of the law portray the situation as more complex than it appears. As for sport participation, if the myth of ascetic sportsmen and sportswomen is not supported, the use and consumption profiles are not clear-cut depending on numerous factors such as age, gender, socio-economic status, intensity and level of sport participation, club membership and more importantly sport subcultures. However, in many cases, strong links with masculinity, as found in the literature, were observed. As for sporting events, the current situation regarding the bans on alcohol sales and sport sponsorship seems again more complex than the law suggests and appears to be continuously contested by stakeholders with different, but often convergent expectations.

Research limitations/implications – The results demonstrate a need to go deeper than visible and official appearances to properly understand the complex relationships between sport and alcohol in France. Particularly, and considering the lack of specific research and evidence regarding the situation, the current public debates regarding the situation cannot be properly informed and are thus strongly influenced by various stakeholders and lobbies, constituting an unsettled field.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the various means of communication available to franchisors in attracting prospective franchisees more effectively than their competitors. In addition, it explores the potential use of Web 2.0 resources by franchisors.

The simultaneous use of various means of communication by franchisors is examined through a case study. The authors have chosen one of the largest franchised chains in the world, which is in the process of expanding its chain of restaurants in many countries, with France being heavily targeted: Subway.

This case study reveals the complementarities of push communication, pull communication, and communication relayed by influencers, along with the development of new means of communication through the use of Web 2.0 tools (Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.).

This paper contributes to the stream of franchising and hospitality management literature. The limitations encountered stem mainly from the case study methodology.

The implications of this research for franchisors relate primarily to the means of communication used in order to appear more attractive in the eyes of potential franchisees. This paper also provides prospective franchisees with a list of sources available to collect useful information in selecting the best‐suited franchised chain to join.

Few papers have assessed the way new franchisees are attracted from a franchisor's perspective. The study of franchisor communication strategy and franchisor use of Web 2.0 resources to bring in new franchisees is indeed original, in comparison with the existing literature.

This chapter expands traditional approaches to Corporate Reputation Management by employing postmodernist approaches to value co-creation in order to identify how Facebook Features can be used to facilitate company–consumer Corporate Reputation co-creation.

Using content analysis of Facebook Fan Pages, the chapter explores how 29 of the world’s most reputable corporations use Facebook Features.

To a surprising degree, the corporations in the sample, despite having virtually limitless access to marketing communications resources, fail to make full use of the opportunities Facebook offers them. It appears that they have not yet fully adapted to this novel medium.

Facebook together with the locus has also shifted the focus of corporate communications from one-way company-controlled transmission of information to multiparty user-controlled conversations. Thus, Corporate Reputations can no longer be managed. Instead, by offering consumers experiences and emotional triggers, corporations can engage them into willingly marketing the corporation and its products to each other.

This is the first systematic analysis of the practices the world’s most prominent corporations utilize (or fail to employ) on Facebook. It illustrates that companies that adapt to the Social Media ecology can successfully orchestrate customer experiences that foster the co-creation of the desired Corporate Reputation.

Network uniformity is crucial in franchising, but an excessive number of imposed constraints to maintain this uniformity jeopardizes a franchisee’s independence and too much independence given to franchisees jeopardizes franchise network uniformity. So, how to find an equilibrium and avoid the reclassification of a franchise contract as a branch manager contract or as an employment contract with all its related consequences? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The research is based on a multiple cases approach. The four complementary cases deal with Yves Rocher (cosmetics and body/face care), Bata (shoes), Fiventis (real estate, life insurance and tax-sheltered savings products), and France Acheminement (express transportation), all analyzed in the French context.

A franchise contract can be reclassified as a branch manager contract if there is economic dependence or as an employment contract if there is a legal subordination relationship. These reclassifications have not only financial consequences, but also an impact in terms of image.

The research is based on secondary data. Collecting data along with interviews of franchisors and franchisees would be beneficial.

The research is of specific interest to franchisors, franchise experts and lawyers in terms of minimizing the possible risks of facing such types of reclassification of franchise contracts. It can also inform franchisees who may be running their businesses under such conditions.

This paper uses a business and law approach in order to analyze the paradox of network uniformity and franchisee autonomy and raises the question of “how to find equilibrium?”

The subject of resale pricing is a hot topic in franchising, due to its links with chain homogeneity and franchisee autonomy. The franchisee is bound by current legislation and regulations, in addition to respecting the franchise contract clauses, to the extent that they are lawful, and potentially opposing contentious professional practices. Focusing on resale prices, we cover these three perspectives, that is, legal, contractual, and professional constraints, using a dual approach based on managerial and legal perspectives and illustrating our arguments using examples from European and French cases.

We illustrate our arguments using examples from European and French cases.

We pointed out that the ban on the practice of imposed resale prices presents several advantages (e.g., integrity of franchise chains, chain’s commercial dynamism).

Our paper contributes to the stream of franchising literature dealing with resale prices.

Our paper can be viewed by franchisors, franchise experts, franchisees, and franchisee candidates as a synthesis of the impact of European and French regulations on resale price-based practices to be adopted in franchise chains. It also highlights practices to be avoided in order to prevent potential conflicts.

We use a dual approach based on managerial and legal perspectives to explore resale prices in the context of franchising.

In this chapter, using a dual approach based on managerial and legal perspectives, we examine franchisee attitudes regarding online sales in franchise networks to better understand their views of the costs and benefits of e-commerce in a franchise network. We thus explore the following research questions from a franchisee perspective: What are franchisees’ attitudes regarding online sales?; Are online sales viewed as complementary or competing sales for physical stores?; What about the opening of a franchisor’s website?; and What about the opening of a franchisee’s website? We also analyze how several different e-commerce options available to franchisors impact franchisee incentives and how they would be treated under European Union competition law.

The empirical research is based on the conduction and analysis of 46 in-depth interviews with franchisees in the retail and service industries in the French market.

We find that online sales in franchise networks raise important questions for the franchisees, and for the franchisors as well. E-commerce has to be integrated into the development strategies of franchise networks. Franchisors should facilitate the online sales practices of their franchisees in order to avoid potential conflicts with them or among the franchisees themselves, thereby maintaining the control necessary to ensure healthy network growth. Moreover, franchisors should pay attention to the sharing of Internet sales with its franchisees.

Our chapter contributes to the stream of franchising literature dealing with the use of Internet in franchise networks. Moreover, it can be viewed by franchisors, franchise experts, franchisees, and franchisee candidates as an overview of issues linked to online sales in franchise networks. It also highlights best practices when having a multichannel strategy.