Title: Overseas expansion activities of North American franchises

Authors: John E. Clarkin

Addresses: Tate Center for Entrepreneurship, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC 29401, USA

Abstract: Internationalisation of business is a topic of interest to both academics and practitioners. Despite their explosive growth in both developed and developing economies, nearly a decade has passed since Shane|s study of overseas expansion by North American franchisors, and few studies have addressed the phenomenon of international expansion by franchise firms in the past five years. Using a sample of 1054 franchise systems and Shane|s Learned Monitoring Capability (LMC) metric, the study reveals significant differences between firms that are actively pursuing overseas expansion and those that are not.

Keywords: franchising; growth; international markets; overseas expansion; internationalisation; North American franchises; entrepreneurship; small business.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2007.011428

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2007 Vol.4 No.1, pp.4 - 16

Published online: 30 Nov 2006 *

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