In this paper, we examine ownership structures of franchise chains and evaluate their impact on franchisor profit. Specifically we compare pure forms of franchising with those that use both company-owned and franchised outlets within one chain - a phenomenon termed the plural form. Theoretically...

Early research work theorized franchising to exist because Hybridal Form Benefits (HFB) are achieved by the franchisor. Compared to the full hierarchy, franchising was held to reduce agency costs, to overcome resource scarcity and to enable risk sharing. Lately, the focus has shifted to an...

Management scholars have long stressed the importance of evolutionary processses for inter-firm cooperation but have mostly missed the promising opportunity to incorporate ideas from evolutionary theories into the analysis of collaborative arrangements. In this paper, we first present three...