To be or not to be franchised? A knowledge-based perspective

Caroline Hussler and Patrick Ronde

Knowledge Management Research & Practice, 2015, vol. 13, issue 4, 429-445

Abstract: This paper investigates the rationale for choosing franchising rather than independent activity, arguing that this choice may be motivated by knowledge and competence considerations. We consider the franchise chain as a specific learning organizational form and explore whether this structure handles knowledge and builds competences according to an idiosyncratic pattern. Concretely, we empirically identify differences in the architecture of competences of franchised vs independent shops in the car maintenance industry in France, and analyse some causes for those differences. Thanks to in depth interviews coupled with lexical and quantitative analyses we find that franchised shops do master specific competences. However, the distinctive competences held by franchisees do not necessarily reflect franchisors’ knowledge, and are not exclusively the consequences of a shared identity in the franchise chain. We conclude that the development of franchise cannot be explained by competence-related arguments only, knowledge and competences being managed in distinctive ways within different franchising networks.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1057/kmrp.2013.61 (text/html)
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:taf:tkmrxx:v:13:y:2015:i:4:p:429-445

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tkmr20

DOI: 10.1057/kmrp.2013.61

Access Statistics for this article

Knowledge Management Research & Practice is currently edited by Giovanni Schiuma

More articles in Knowledge Management Research & Practice from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().