Thesis
International marketing of services through franchising: ban in-depth investigation
Southern Cross University, Graduate College of Management
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Southern Cross University
2002
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Abstract
International trade in services is increasing and franchising is the favoured market entry strategy for this. Nevertheless, few studies have investigated the international marketing of services through franchising. In particular, how the services elements of 'people', 'physical evidence' and 'process' of an international franchise service system are influenced by the international environments of different countries has not been researched. That is, gaps in the literature present this research problem: How and why can franchisors of services enter international markets, with particular reference to cross-cultural and other macro environmental issues about trade in to or from Australia?
From a review of the literature, a theoretical framework was developed that incorporated six international macro-environments with the three elements of a service system of people, physical evidence and process. From the foundations of this theoretical framework, three research issues and six sub-research issues for each macro-environment were developed to guide data collection and analysis. The three research issues were:
How do international cultural, political and legal, economic and demographic, competitive, technological and natural macro-environments influence:
• the services-only marketing mix element of people? (Research issue 1)
• the services-only marketing mix element of physical evidence? (Research issue 2)
• the services-only marketing mix element of process? (Research issue 3)
A two-stage qualitative methodology was used to investigate these research issues. In the first, exploratory stage, five convergent interviews with franchising experts focused the research issues developed from the extant literature. In the second stage of case research, eight cases involving 24 in-depth interviews backed up by 10 triangulating interviews were used to confirm or disconfirm the theoretical framework developed from the literature. The collected data was rigorously analysed through coding and developing data displays that depicted common patterns for each research issue.
The findings from these patterns revealed how the cultural, political and legal, economic and demographic, competitive, technological and natural macro-environments influence the international franchise service system and its elements of people, physical evidence and process. For example, international franchisees and their service employees become distressed when applying western style operating and training procedures that are different from their own cultural orientation towards delivering a service. Further, some franchise service systems require extensive adaptations to procedures and mechanisms before they are internationalised. Essentially, the findings about the three research issues concerning these three services elements identify the level of adaptation of the franchise system that is required for the cultural and other macro-environments of a particular overseas country.
This research makes several contributions because it is the first, comprehensive and rigorous empirical study about the macro-environmental adaptations of the international franchise service system. Indeed, the final framework is the first, complete theory about the issues involved. Implications for policy and practice are drawn, and implications for further research are noted including the possibility of a survey for statistical generalisation of the built theory.
Details
- Title
- International marketing of services through franchising: ban in-depth investigation
- Creators
- Laurel Scanlan
- Contributors
- Chad Perry (Supervisor) - Southern Cross University
- Awarding Institution
- Southern Cross University; Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Theses
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Southern Cross University
- Publisher
- Southern Cross University, Graduate College of Management
- Number of pages
- xv, 270
- Identifiers
- 991013321028502368
- Copyright
- © Laurel Scanlan 2002
- Academic Unit
- Graduate School
- Resource Type
- Thesis