“…This decision may be influenced by the potential issues that the adoption of the franchising strategy could cause for the company. The most prominent of these issues include the following: 1) legal complexity (i.e., difficulties in ensuring compliance with the contract terms on the part of a franchisee); 2) loss in operating income because the franchisor does not own the franchised divisions and can thus claim only a share in the income generated by these divisions; 3) potential conflicts with franchisees on maintaining the required quality standards; and 4) difficulties in maintaining confidentiality and trade secrets (Panyukova, 2004b;Andrew, Damitio, Schmidgall, 2007;Koh, Lee, Boo, 2009;McCuddy, Eser, Pinar, 2011;Kashyap, Antia, Frazier, 2012). Therefore, we can assume that large companies (in terms of assets or revenues) that possess substantial resources tend to avoid using the franchising strategy to reduce their risks.…”