Title: Governance structure and organisational learning in franchising

Authors: Xiaoli Yin, Mark Shanley

Addresses: Department of Management, Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, City University of New York, One Bernard Baruch Way, Box B9-240, New York, NY 10010, USA. ' Department of Managerial Studies, College of Business Administration, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607, USA

Abstract: When parent firms employ different governance structures for their individual outlets, they may create different learning environments. Specifically, different levels of organisational routines and local adaptability emerge across independent, company-owned and franchisee-owned outlets (including single versus multi-unit franchisee-owned outlets). Company-owned outlets tend to exhibit a high level of organisational routines, whereas independent outlets feature a high level of local adaptability. Franchisee-owned outlets reveal a moderate level of organisational routines and local adaptability. Multi-unit franchisee-owned outlets have a higher level of organisational routines and a lower level of local adaptability relative to single-unit franchisee-owned outlets.

Keywords: franchising; organisational routines; governance structures; organisational learning; franchises; franchisees; parent firms; learning environments; local adaptability; independent outlets; company-owned outlets; franchisee-owned outlets; multi-unit outlets; single-unit outlets; USA; United States; strategic change management; knowledge governance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSCM.2010.035848

International Journal of Strategic Change Management, 2010 Vol.2 No.4, pp.298 - 311

Published online: 06 Oct 2010 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article