Franchising for sustainable advantage? Comparing the performance of independent retailers and trade-name franchisees

Firm Survival and Chain Growth in a Privatized Retail Liquor Store Industry

“…The authors find that while many general patterns from manufacturing data are also observed in the retailing data, entry and exit rates tend to be larger in retailing. 8 For recent studies in this literature, see Holmberg and Morgan (2003), Bates (1998), Lafontaine and Shaw (1998), Litz andStewart (1998), andMichael (2003). 9 See Siegfried and Evans (1994) for a survey of the empirical work on entry and exit, including the importance of a first-mover advantage.…”

A distribution services approach for developing effective competitive strategies against “big box” retailers

“…However, if one retailer can match the mix of another retailer with lower costs, the inferior firm is unlikely to survive. Smaller retailers face this risk due to the economies of scale afforded to big box retailers (Litz and Stewart, 1998). In the next section, we consider whether these economies of scale are universal across all types of distribution services.…”

“…Large-format chain store retailers have presumably achieved economies of scale enabling them to provide a given level of distribution services for a lower cost than smaller competitors Gautschi, 1986, 1988; see also Darrow et al, 1994;Litz and Stewart, 1998). Furthermore, some of these distribution services benefit from economies of scope, whereby the provision of higher levels of one type of service might lower the marginal costs of providing a given level of a second (Betancourt and Gautschi, 1986).…”

“…In research focusing on potential competitive niches for smaller retailers in the retail hardware industry, Litz and Stewart (1998) suggest that ''economies of scale are often outweighed by the diseconomies that come from a loss of human scale and the increase in bureaucracy'' (p. 134, see also Bain, 1968). These diseconomies of human scale are particularly relevant for firms engaged in transactions with a high degree of information-intensity (Glazer, 1991), because they are less suitable for large scale transacting (Daft and Lengel, 1990;Litz and Stewart, 1998). Furthermore, retail transactions that have high labor and personal service content would tend to be absent of economies of scale because they are ''intrinsi cally hard to mechanize or routinize'' (Porter, 1980, p. 196).…”

The Use of Importance-Performance Analysis to Measure the Satisfaction of Travel Agency Franchisees

“…Litz and Stewart (1998) showed that franchising brands are a source of strategic advantage, because firm outcomes are positively impacted. Kaufmann (1999) shows the rationale behind the franchisee's decision to acquire a franchise.…”