Agency issues in franchising electricity distribution companies: inter-organizational and multi-level study

Mrigakshi Das

Journal of Economic and Administrative Sciences, 2022, vol. 40, issue 2, 201-220

Abstract: Purpose - Management of power distribution companies (discoms) in India has been historically criticized on the ground of inefficient management. Inefficiency in operations triggered management by private franchisees for promotion of managerial and technical expertise. However, franchise contracts have achieved mixed outcomes despite the business model being a decade old in the Indian power distribution sector. Therefore, this study sheds light on the drivers of discoms (principal) with the franchisees (agent) for the achievement of the common performance goals, highlighting the agency issues at multiple levels across the organizational hierarchies. The study seeks to acknowledge the commonalities and differences between and across varying levels. Design/methodology/approach - A qualitative embedded single case study was conducted in an Indian state, namely Odisha. The study was built on archival analysis, personal observations and semi-structured interviews with the franchisors and franchisee officials across the organization's hierarchical levels. A conceptual model based on the review of prior literature formed the set of coding and presentation for the study. Findings - The study provides insights on factors that play a role in effective power distribution management, operational efficiency and improved financial performance through the partnership of the principal and the agent. Research limitations/implications - The study is predominantly dependent upon interviews. This paved the way for the limitation of human biases. Additionally, deep insights were drawn from a single case study of a discom's decision to hire franchisees. However, this was at the cost of the number of organizations interviewed. The findings of the study could be built across other areas or nations. Originality/value - There is adequate literature on franchising as a business model. However, literature is lacking in highlighting the commonalities and differences between different contracting parties and their impact on the performance of the contract. Additionally, there is a dearth of literature on franchising in the power distribution sector. Therefore, studying the model from multiple perspectives would contribute to the literature on the power sector and franchising.

Keywords: Electricity distribution; Franchisee performance; Agent-principal relationship; Public-private partnership business management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:jeaspp:jeas-06-2021-0115

DOI: 10.1108/JEAS-06-2021-0115

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic and Administrative Sciences is currently edited by Associate Professor Ghulam A Arain and Dr Rebecca Abraham

More articles in Journal of Economic and Administrative Sciences from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().