The degree to which a franchise system penetrates a target market over time often is influenced by the rate to which its individual franchisees expand. Yet a franchisee's decision to expand the business operation depends, in part, on the perception of value that the franchisee expects to receive from the franchisor in return for a variety of fees (for example, entry fee, advertising fees, royalties). Moreover, the franchisee's experience with its franchisor may strengthen or weaken his or her perception of franchisor value. The change in perception of franchisor value can influence franchisees’ decisions to expand their franchise operations. To date, scant research exists on factors influencing a franchisee's decision to expand. In the reported study, a four‐stage analysis was conducted to examine empirically whether franchisees’ opinions about the value of their franchisors changes over time. The study findings reveal that franchisees had the strongest, positive opinions when asked to recall an earlier decision to expand their franchise operations. These opinions weakened when franchisees contemplating expansion of their operations were asked for their current and anticipated future opinions of franchisor value. Overall, franchisees were undecided when asked about their perceptions of current franchisor value and anticipated future franchisor value. Implications of these findings for theory and practice of franchising are discussed.
As many segments of the tourism industry reach the maturation stage, marketers have turned their attention to building long-term relationships with their best customers. Despite the importance of customer loyalty for understanding these relationships, there is no consensus as to how loyalty develops. Most loyalty programs currently being used promote repeated purchases but are ineffective in enhancing customers’ psychological attachment. The purpose was to test a conceptual framework of the development of loyalty that is grounded in resource theory, reciprocity, and customer equity. The results indicated that if customers perceived that a provider was making an investment in them, they in turn made a similar investment in the provider, and those investments led to loyalty. The findings revealed that investments of love, status, and information were more closely associated with loyalty than investments of money. These findings support the proposed theoretical model and help explain how well-designed loyalty programs may lead to increased psychological attachment. Recommendations for effective relationship marketing strategies are provided.
Studies of materialism have increased in recent years, and most of these studies examine various aspects of materialism including its individual or social consequences. However, understanding, and possibly shaping, a society's materialistic tendencies requires a more complete study of the relationship between a society's institutional patterns and the acceptance of materialism by its members. Consequently, the current study examines five of the institutional antecedents of materialism to understand better how and why it develops as a mode of consumption within a society. More specifically, a model relating materialism and a set of institutionalized patterns of social behavior referred to as the dominant social paradigm was developed and tested in a study of seven industrial, market-based countries. The results suggest that the economic, technological, political, anthropocentric, and competition institutions making up the dominant social paradigm are all positively related to materialism. The implications of the relationship are then discussed.
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