The Influence of Franchiser’s Defensive Marketing Strategies on the Franchisee’s Relationship Quality and Loyalty in Chain Convenience Stores Industry

• Main Authors: LO, YING-SHENG, 羅盈勝
• Other Authors: Wang, Jun-Ren
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/48931644963583343547

碩士 === 實踐大學 === 企業管理研究所 === 92 === The convenience store industry is fast becoming one of the most competitive industries in the Taiwanese franchise chain store business. Therefore, one of the most important tasks facing the franchise business is the challenge of maintaining a friendly relationship with the franchisees. In theory, the franchisers generally do not want to see the franchisees incurring a penalty charge (for failing to meet certain conditions in the franchise contract) or the franchisees leaving after the contract expires since it is damaging to their relationship. Thus, when the franchise agreement expires, the franchisers employ various direct and indirect value-added and value-recovery strategies and measures to convince the franchisee to renew the contract. This study will be based on the value-added and value-recovery models developed by Dube and Maute in 1998 to investigate the impact on franchisee’s quality relationship and loyalty when the franchisers used value-added and value-recovery strategies. Furthermore, special emphasis was placed on the convenient store franchisees, and their thoughts and feeling about the value-added and value-recovery strategies. The franchisee’s personal characteristics and transfer cost (cost of switching to a different convenience franchiser) are also important influencing factors that were taken into consideration. The primary method used to study the relationship and loyalty issues within the context of convenient store franchises was focus group interviews. The focus group participants were chosen from franchisees belonging to five of the biggest franchise convenience store chains in Taiwan. A total of 398 valid surveys were collected. This study employed the Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Correlation Analysis and LISREL (Linear Structural Relation) Analysis to analyze the impacts various dimensions have on the results. The findings are as followed: 1.Value-added and value-recovery strategies employed by the franchisers does have a positive impact on the franchisee’s relationship with the franchiser. 2.The relationship between franchisee and franchiser has a positive impact on franchisee loyalty. 3.Only some of the franchisee’s personal characteristics become influencing factors to the franchisee’s relationship with the franchiser when value-added and value-recovery strategies were employed. 4.The transfer cost (cost of switching to a different convenient franchise dealer) has no influence on franchisee loyalty and franchisee relationship with the franchiser. This study will present implications and suggestions to the franchisers based on the research findings and results. Lastly, research limitations (if any) will be indicated and suggestions will be made for further study into the subject.