• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.23-37
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• 2022

Purpose: The Korean franchise market has undergone drastic growth in recent years. Followed by expansion of franchise business types, relevant legal matters have diversified. Compared to conventional economic laws that focused on resolving problems related to unfair transactions between franchisors and franchisees, more diverse labor laws have emerged recently due to governance and economic dependencies of franchise structure. However, it was found that the business environment of franchisees and working conditions of franchisee employees have not changed accordingly due to the unique structure of franchise business. Though franchisees are entrepreneurs independent from franchisors, they are still under franchising contract with the franchisors. For instance, employees of franchisees have been exposed to malpractices in regard to pay, time, and other working conditions. These malpractices may show the ineffectiveness of current labor laws. Labor management is an important issue for sustainability of franchise businesses. Negative publicity of franchises generated from violating relevant labor laws may have significant negative impact on overall image of franchised brands. However, franchisors should not hold franchisees fully responsible for legal violations in terms of labor management but strive to prevent relevant risks. Thus, the recent amendment in labor law related to increased minimum wage and reduced worktime have called for more attention to effectively implementing the law. Research design, data, and methodology: This study was conducted through a review of franchise-related laws and various institutions and policies. Results: It is further needed for all parties, including franchisors, franchisees, and franchisee employees, to take collaborative actions to improve working conditions of franchisees. Therefore, this study aims to propose appropriate and effective response plans toward recent changes in the Minimum Wage Act, while strengthening sustainability of franchisors, franchisees, and their employees. Conclusions: The proposal mainly contains plans regarding profit-related aids and profit sharing/cost reduction strategies for franchisees, as well as collective bargaining in the franchisor-franchisee relation. More detailed suggestions are included. Conclusions: This proposal may help franchisors and policymakers develop business plans and policies in improving business conditions of franchisees and working conditions of franchisee employees.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.23 no.10
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• pp.189-201
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• 2018

This study analyzed the effect of core competence of supervisor on the satisfaction, loyalty, business performance of franchisees and business performance of franchisor. And the purpose of this study is to solve the most problematic issues in franchise business such as poor sales of franchisee, inadequate measures for activating sluggish stores, closing rate increase of franchisee, dispute between a franchisee and franchisor. The results of this study will be used as data for the success of Franchisor's business operation and for the change and development of the franchise industry. In this study, 168 CEOs and employees in the franchise industry were surveyed. Through previous research and expert interviews, we designed the core competency factors of franchise supervisors into seven areas: check, consulting, coordination, promotion, counseling, communication, and control. In order to verify the hypothesis of the research, the relationship between variables was verified by simple regression analysis and multiple regression analysis. Key result of the study are as follows. First, the core competency of the supervisor has a positive relationship with the franchisee's satisfaction. Second, the core competence of the supervisor has a positive relationship with the franchisee's loyalty. Third, franchisee's satisfaction has a positive effect on loyalty. Fourth, franchisee's satisfaction positively affects the business performance of franchisee and franchisor. Fifth, franchisee's loyalty positively affects the business performance of franchisee and franchisor.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.1-18
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• 2017

This study focuses on the recent case held as to control in franchising. On the basis of analysis of the recent case, it examines the validity of the decision and suggests practical advice. The extensive judicial precedent has held that the franchisor and the franchisee possess the independent contractor relationship. But Williams v. Jani-king of Philadelphia Inc. suggest the conversion of the franchisee's status to an employees instead of an independent contractor. Franchisees allege that they were wrongly classified as independent contractors instead of employees because Jani-King had the ability to control the manner in which franchisees perform their day-to-day tasks. The appeal court held that Pennsylvania law does not distinguish between controls put in place to protect a franchise's intellectual property and controls for other purposes, and a franchisee may be an employee or an independent contractor depending on the nature of the franchise system controls. However, some degree of controls by the franchisor over the franchisee is inherent in the franchise and may even be mandated by the federal and state laws. Moreover, the appeal court affirmed that the franchise agreement, policies manual, and training manual alone could be sufficient to resolve the employment status. But it seems appropriate that the right to control on the documents is considered with the actual control.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.404-414
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• 2012

B2B2C distribution channel between travel agencies, the travel franchiser's fairness become a big issue. So this study examines the effects of B2B transaction fairness between travel agencies on relationship-orientation and travel franchisee's performance. The research results are as follows: First, the most influential factor on the franchisee's performance was found as relationship-orientation factor. Second, among the 3 variable factors of B2B transaction fairness, the most influential factor on the franchisee's relationship-orientation was found as interactional fairness. And procedural fairness was found as next. Third, distributive fairness and interactional fairness were found to have a significant effect on franchisee's financial performance. And distributive fairness and procedural fairness were found to have a significant effect on franchisee's non-financial competency. Conclusively, excellent employees of travel franchiser' are the most valuable factors in B2B2C transactions due to the nature of the travel industry where human services are valued above everything else.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.25-35
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• 2019

Purpose - The major objective of this study was to investigate the effect of franchisor's (economic and philanthropic) CSR in inspiring franchisee's loyalty for the franchisor. Another aim of this investigation also was to clarify the mediating role of economic and social satisfaction in the relationship between franchisor's CSR and franchisee's loyalty. Research design, data, and methodology - This study explores the structural relationship between franchisor's CSR and franchisee's loyalty and in these relationships, the mediating role of relationship satisfaction. Data were gathered from employees(above manager) in food-service franchisee companies in Seoul, Korea. The questionnaires were distributed to managers of the franchise stores. A total of 251 questionnaires were collected. Data management and analysis were performed using SPSS 21.O and SmartPLS 3.0. Evaluation of measurement model and structural model was carried out using confirmatory factor analysis and correlation analysis. Result - The results of this study show as follows. First, economic CSR had positive effects on economic satisfaction and social satisfaction. Second, philanthropic CSR had positive effects on social satisfaction. Third, economic satisfaction and social satisfaction had positive effects on franchisee's loyalty to the franchisor. Conclusions - The important implications of this study have as follows. First, this study has found that economic CSR can create a high economic satisfaction and social satisfaction of franchisee. Second, this findings suggest that the philanthropic CSR can improve the social satisfaction of franchisee. Third, this results demonstrate, for the first time, that the economic satisfaction and social satisfaction of franchisees can play a crucial role to improve their loyalty for the franchisor and pursue mutual development by maintaining the stable business relationship with a franchisor. In this investigation there are at least three limitations. First, Because the research sample is limited to the foodservice franchisee in Seoul, it is not possible to be representativeness of the national franchisee. Second, CSR activities are mostly focused on large franchise companies. Therefore, there is a limit to the research approach. Finally, this study examined the effect of economic CSR and philanthropic CSR on the loyalty of franchisors, but in the future study, it is necessary to analyze the relationship between CSR and loyalty of franchise companies by collecting specific quantitative data such as re-contract rate and management performance of franchisees.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.49-71
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• 2010

Franchise businesses in South Korea have contributed to economic growth and job creation, and its growth potential remains very high. However, despite such virtues, domestic franchise businesses face many problems such as the instability of franchisor's business structure and weak financial conditions. To solve these problems, the government enacted legislation and strengthened franchise related laws. However, the strengthening of laws regulating franchisors had many side effects that interrupted the development of the franchise business. For example, legal regulations regarding franchisors have had the effect of suppressing the franchisor's leadership activities (e.g. activities such as the ability to advocate the franchisor's policies and strategies to the franchisees, in order to facilitate change and innovation). One of the main goals of the franchise business is to build cooperation between the franchisor and the franchisee for their combined success. However, franchisees can refuse to follow the franchisor's strategies because of the current state of franchise-related law and government policy. The purpose of this study to explore the effects of franchisor's leadership style on franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. We classified leadership styles according to the path-goal theory (House & Mitchell, 1974), and it was hypothesized and tested that the four leadership styles proposed by the path-goal theory (i.e. directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented leadership) have different effects on franchisee's commitment. Another purpose of this study to explore the how the level of franchisee's self-efficacy influences both the franchisor's leadership style and franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. Results of the present study are expected to provide important theoretical and practical implications as to the role of franchisor's leadership style, as restricted by government regulations and the franchisee's self-efficacy, which could be needed to improve the quality of the long-term relationship between the franchisor and franchisee. Quoted by Northouse(2007), one problem regarding the investigation of leadership is that there are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are people who have tried to define it. But despite the multitude of ways in which leadership has been conceptualized, the following components can be identified as central to the phenomenon: (a) leadership is a process, (b) leadership involves influence, (c) leadership occurs in a group context, and (d) leadership involves goal attainment. Based on these components, in this study leadership is defined as a process whereby franchisor's influences a group of franchisee' to achieve a common goal. Focusing on this definition, the path-goal theory is about how leaders motivate subordinates to accomplish designated goals. Drawing heavily from research on what motivates employees, path-goal theory first appeared in the leadership literature in the early 1970s in the works of Evans (1970), House (1971), House and Dessler (1974), and House and Mitchell (1974). The stated goal of this leadership theory is to enhance employee performance and employee satisfaction by focusing on employee motivation. In brief, path-goal theory is designed to explain how leaders can help subordinates along the path to their goals by selecting specific behaviors that are best suited to subordinates' needs and to the situation in which subordinates are working (Northouse, 2007). House & Mitchell(1974) predicted that although many different leadership behaviors could have been selected to be a part of path-goal theory, this approach has so far examined directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented leadership behaviors. And they suggested that leaders may exhibit any or all of these four styles with various subordinates and in different situations. However, due to restrictive government regulations, franchisors are not in a position to change their leadership style to suit their circumstances. In addition, quoted by Northouse(2007), ssubordinate characteristics determine how a leader's behavior is interpreted by subordinates in a given work context. Many researchers have focused on subordinates' needs for affiliation, preferences for structure, desires for control, and self-perceived level of task ability. In this study, we have focused on the self-perceived level of task ability, namely, the franchisee's self-efficacy. According to Bandura (1977), self-efficacy is chiefly defined as the personal attitude of one's ability to accomplish concrete tasks. Therefore, it is not an indicator of one's actual abilities, but an opinion of the extent of how one can use that ability. Thus, the judgment of maintain franchisee's commitment depends on the situation (e.g., government regulation and policy and leadership style of franchisor) and how it affects one's ability to mobilize resources to deal with the task, so even if people possess the same ability, there may be differences in self-efficacy. Figure 1 illustrates the model investigated in this study. In this model, it was hypothesized that leadership styles would affect the franchisee's commitment, and self-efficacy would moderate the relationship between leadership style and franchisee's commitment. Theoretically, quoted by Northouse(2007), the path-goal approach suggests that leaders need to choose a leadership style that best fits the needs of subordinates and the work they are doing. According to House & Mitchell (1974), the theory predicts that a directive style of leadership is best in situations in which subordinates are dogmatic and authoritarian, the task demands are ambiguous, and the organizational rule and procedures are unclear. In these situations, franchisor's directive leadership complements the work by providing guidance and psychological structure for franchisees. For work that is structured, unsatisfying, or frustrating, path-goal theory suggests that leaders should use a supportive style. Franchisor's Supportive leadership offers a sense of human touch for franchisees engaged in mundane, mechanized activity. Franchisor's participative leadership is considered best when a task is ambiguous because participation gives greater clarity to how certain paths lead to certain goals; it helps subordinates learn what actions leads to what outcome. Furthermore, House & Mitchell(1974) predicts that achievement-oriented leadership is most effective in settings in which subordinates are required to perform ambiguous tasks. Marsh and O'Neill (1984) tested the idea that organizational members' anger and decline in performance is caused by deficiencies in their level of effort and found that self-efficacy promotes accomplishment, decreases stress and negative consequences like depression and emotional instability. Based on the extant empirical findings and theoretical reasoning, we posit positive and strong relationships between the franchisor's leadership styles and the franchisee's commitment. Furthermore, the level of franchisee's self-efficacy was thought to maintain their commitment. The questionnaires sent to participants consisted of the following measures; leadership style was assessed using a 20 item 7-point likert scale developed by Indvik (1985), self-efficacy was assessed using a 24 item 6-point likert scale developed by Bandura (1977), and commitment was assessed using a 6 item 5-point likert scale developed by Morgan & Hunt (1994). Questionnaires were distributed to Korean optical franchisees in Seoul. It took about 20 days to complete the data collection. A total number of 140 questionnaires were returned and complete data were available from 137 respondents. Results of multiple regression analyses testing the relationships between the each of the four styles of leadership shown by the franchisor as independent variables and franchisee's commitment as the dependent variable showed that the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.13, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.07, p<.001)were significant. However, when participants divided into high and low self-efficacy groups, results of multiple regression analyses showed that only the relationship between achievement-oriented leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.14, p<.001) was significant in the high self-efficacy group. In the low self-efficacy group, the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.17, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.10, p<.001) were significant. The study focused on the franchisee's self-efficacy in order to explore the possibility that regulation, originally intended to protect the franchisee, may not be the most effective method to maintain the relationships in a franchise business. The key results of the data analysis regarding the moderating role of self-efficacy between leadership behavior style as proposed by path-goal and commitment theory were as follows. First, this study proposed that franchisor should apply the appropriate type of leadership behavior to strengthen the franchisees commitment because the results demonstrated that supportive and participative leadership styles by the franchisors have a positive influence on the franchisee's level of commitment. Second, it is desirable for franchisor to validate the franchisee's efforts, since the franchisee's characteristics such as self-efficacy had a substantial, positive effect on the franchisee's commitment as well as being a meaningful moderator between leadership and commitment. Third, the results as a whole imply that the government should provide institutional support, namely to put the franchisor in a position to clearly identify the characteristics of their franchisees and provide reasonable means to administer the franchisees to achieve the company's goal.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.17-24
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• 2017

Purpose - In recent years, research has been conducted on the conflict resolution strategies of the franchise headquarters and the franchisees, but there is a lack of research on how the power structure and cultural factors play a role in resolving conflicts. From this perspective, this study is to examine the structural relationship between franchisors' cultural orientation and relationship power, and conflict resolution strategies, relationship trust, and relationship performance using. The findings of this study suggest how franchise headquarters should establish long-term relationship with franchisees and share information. Research design, data, methodology - The data were collected from April 1 to April 15, 2013. Because this study examined franchise industries from the franchisee perspective, we contacted franchisee store owner and managers located in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. Interviewers trained contacted a total of 200 franchisees, and 196 franchisees responded. Out of 196 respondents, 13 respondents were deleted due to missing information. Thus, a total of 183 franchisee were used for this study. he data were analyzed using frequency analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and structural equational modeling with SPSS 24.0 and Amos 23.0 statistical program. Results - The results showed that cooperation orientation and relational power of franchisor had significant effects on conflict resolution strategies. Cooperating, obliging, and compromising strategies of conflict resolution strategy had significant effects on relationship trust. Also, relationship trust had significant effect on relationship performance. Conclusions - This study shows that the franchise headquarters and the franchisees share necessary information for common purposes and that continuous two-way communications play an important role in resolving conflicts. In other words, the result of this study suggests that if the franchise headquarters and the franchisee actively consider the position of the other party and strive to achieve the goal, conflict resolution may be more successful. In order to do this, the franchise headquarters will have to consider how to build and maintain continuous communication with the franchisees, and continuous education is also needed so that employees can have a cooperative attitude. However, since the culture of these organizations is not made up of simple staff training and is not formed within a short time, the CEO of the franchisee headquarters should take the lead in establishing a cooperative culture with the merchants over the long term.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.7-17
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• 2020

Purpose - As the competition in the foodservice franchise industry and the market becomes fierce and the entry barrier is lowered, the foodservice franchisor and franchisees strive to increase their competitive advantage in the market. Therefore, the franchisor and franchisees use experience management strategies to enhance the positive experiences of customers visiting the stores. In this regard, this study examines the effects of customer-oriented activities (physical-, social-, health-, and service-oriented activities) on utilitarian and hedonic values, and loyalty using stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model and value-expectancy theory. Research design, data, methodology - The data were collected from panels of online survey company, who visited a foodservice franchisee within last month. The survey was conducted for about 15 days from March 7, 2019 to March 21, 2019, and about 3,500 e-mails and messages were distributed to ask for the survey. A total 412 responded and completed the questionnaires. Of the 412 completed questionaires, 12 were discarded due to missing and misinformation data and 400 were retained for further data analysis. Results --The results showed that social oriented activities, health oriented activities, and service oriented activities had positive effects on hedonic value, while physical oriented activities did not have a significant effect on hedonic value. Health oriented activities and service oriented activities had positive effects on utilitarian value, while physical oriented activities and social oriented activities had no significant effects on utilitarian value. Hedonic and utilitarian values also have a positive effect on loyalty. Conclusions - First, food service franchises should provide services and menus in consideration of the health of customers. When a customer visits the store, franchisee should provide more health-oriented food or materials and clean and comfortable conditions so as not to threaten the health of the customer. Second, the food service franchise must build a service-oriented system. Foodservice franchisor need to provide continuous service training not only to the franchisees, but also to the employees of the franchisees. Third, franchise should design a store where customers can form social exchanges through providing various information exchange to customers and making the store as a local community center.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.51-66
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• 2015

As competition for better service between corporations is getting fierce, many efforts to improve service quality are being made endlessly. The quality of service is directly associated with customer satisfaction and the employee performance of emotional labor is a key factor to attain a high level of customer review and better corporation image. This study examines an influence of emotional labor on job stress and customer orientation in the context of a service franchise firm. The results are as follow. First, deep acting of emotional labor has a negative influence on job stress, and surface acting of emotional labor has a negative influence on customer orientation. Also, job stress has a negative influence on customer orientation. Second, deep acting of emotional labor does not have a positive influence on customer orientation. Third, surface acting of emotional labor does not have a positive influence on job stress. The findings of this study show that deep acting of service based on an employee emotion can produce the employee's better service attitude by decreasing employees' job stress, but standardized surface acting of service cannot. Therefore, franchisor needs to use employees' deep acting to improve the franchisee service quality.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.33-47
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• 2019

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to classify and analyze existing studies from various angles through systematic literature review of how human resources development has been researched in the domestic franchise business. These studies are intended to suggest the direction in which human resource development research should be conducted in the future in the franchise business. Research design, data, and methodology - This study is based on systematic literature review methodology. It has gone through the process of subject language setting, literature search routing, search term selection, literature selection, literature classification and literature analysis. The systematic literature review identified 59 peer-reviewed dissertations and scientific journal publications on the subject of HRD in Korea franchise business. Result - This study analyzed by research methods, research industries, research population and dependent variable using the systematic review process. The literature studied in the 2000s mainly led to research on education and training of franchise employees in beauty franchise business. In the literature studied since 2010, human resources development was mainly studied in the supervisor in the restaurant franchise business, and in the study of competence rather than education and training. According to the research methods, statistical methods were mostly relatively simple, such as t-test or one-way distribution analysis until the 2000s, and after 2010, in-depth and structural studies using multiple return analysis, structural method analysis, path analysis, multi-dimensional scale analysis, AHP, etc were conducted. When classified by study dependant, early research until the 2000s focused on the study of education and training, which is an independent variable, on the satisfaction of education programs, job satisfaction, and immersion. On the other hand, studies conducted since 2010 have produced more complex results using various medium variants, and those related to management performance and relationship performance have been mainly studied, rather than the satisfaction of the education itself. Conclusions - While the domestic franchise business is expanding in terms of quantity, such as the number of franchises and franchises, the development in terms of quality for the joint growth of franchises and franchisees is still lacking. In order for the franchisee to continue to grow with each other, the franchisee must identify and develop their current performance or expected capabilities through capacity modeling at various targets and levels.