본 연구는 국내 프랜차이즈기업을 대상으로 해외 진출기업과 미진출기업의 조직특성에서의 차이점을 규명하는 데 목적이 있다. 본 연구는 자원기반이론과 대리이론에 근거하여 몇 가지 조직특성이 국내 프랜차이즈기업의 해외진출을 촉진하는 것으로 가설을 설정하고 있으며 이를 국내 315개 프랜차이즈기업에 대한 서베이조사를 통해 검증하고 있다.
분석 결과, 해외 진출 프랜차이즈기업이 미진출 프랜차이즈기업에 비해 규모가 크고 역사가 오래되었으며, 국내시장에서 점포의 지리적 분포가 큰 것으로 나타났다. 성장성과 가격구속은 해외 진출기업과 미진출기업간에 통계적으로 유의적인 차이가 없는 것으로 나타났다. 분석결과를 토대로 본 연구는 국내 프랜차이즈기업의 해외진출을 위한 몇 가지 시사점을 향후 연구과제와 함께 제시하고 있다.
Franchising is one of the fastest growing types of business. It is already popular and well-known in the U.S., and has been growing in many other countries including Korea. Furthermore, many Korean franchising companies have expanded their business overseas actively. According to the data by the Ministry of Industry and Resource, 82 companies out of a sample of 500 franchising companies are already operating in many foreign countries and 48% of them have started their foreign business since 2006. This clearly indicates the fast growing current trend of foreign operation by Korean franchising companies. In spite of the fast growing trend of foreign expansion in the industry, academic research on internationalization of franchising companies is extremely difficult to find. Accordingly, academic research on the issue is necessary and urgent in Korea.
Among the various research questions on internationalization of franchising business, this study intends to investigate the difference in organizational factors between the franchising companies doing foreign operation and those doing business only domestically. More specifically, this research has the following purposes. First, considering the lack of theoretical basis of previous studies, resource-based theory and agency theory are employed as the theoretical bases. Second, this study explains the difference in internationalization based on organizational factors such as company size, history and growth rate. Third, the five hypotheses regarding the difference in organizational factors are presented and tested empirically, which is the first attempt in the area of this topic. Finally, the study attempts to clarify the conflicting implications among theories regarding some organizational factos such as growth rate.
As the theoretical background, resource-based theory and agency theory are discussed. According to resource-based theory, a firm can grow continuously when it has competence and resource, and also the ability to develop them. The competence and resource can include capital, human resource, management skill, market information, ability to manage risk, etc. Meanwhile, agency theory views the relationship between franchisor and franchisee as an agency relationship. In agency theory, bonding capability and monitoring capability are the two key factors which promote internationalization of franchising companies.
Based on the two theories, a conceptual model is designed. The model consists of two groups of variables. One is organizational factors including size, history, growth rate, price bonding and geographic dispersion. The other is whether a franchising company is operating overseas or not. We developed the following five research hypotheses basically describing the relationship between organizational factors and internationalization of franchising companies.
H1: The size of franchising companies operating overseas is larger than that of franchising companies operating domestically.
H2: The history of franchising companies operating overseas is longer than that of franchising companies operating domestically.
H3: The growth rate of franchising companies operating overseas is higher than that of franchising companies operating domestically.
H4: The price bonding of franchising companies operating overseas is higher than that of franchising companies operating domestically.
H5: The geographic dispersion of franchising companies operating overseas is wider than that of franchising companies operating domestically.
Data for the analyses are obtained from 2005 Korea Franchise Survey data co-generated by Ministry of Industry and Resource, GS1 Korea, and Korea Franchise Association. Out of 2,804 population companies, 2,489 companies are excluded for various reasons and 315 companies are selected as the final sample. Prior to hypotheses tests, validity and reliability of the measures of size, history, growth rate and price bonding are examined for further analyses. Geographic dispersion is not validated since it is measured using nominal data.
A series of independent sample T-tests is used to find out whether there exists any significant difference between the companies internationalized and those operating only domestically for each organizational factor. Among the five factors, size and geographic dispersion show significant difference, growth rate and price bonding do not reveal any difference and, finally, history factor shows conflicting results in the difference depending on how to measure it.
In conclusion, the results show that the size and history, which are the key variables in resource-based theory, have a significant relationship with internationalization and that geographic area, which belongs to agency theory, also has a strong relationship with internationalization. The results support the findings of extant research and, therefore, prove the usefulness of resource-based theory and agency theory in explaining internationalization of franchising companies. However, growth rate and price-bonding do not show a clear difference between the two types of companies. Accordingly, these two factors need further attention in the future research.
Although this study shows meaningful findings theoretically and practically, it has several limitations. First, only organizational factors are considered even if there are various environmental factors influencing franchising firm's internationalization. Second, only being internationalized or not is considered. That is, modes of entry and the size of foreign operations are not included in the study. Third, internationalization strategy is often determined based on the desire for business expansion and higher profitability and egoistical reasons of the CEOs. However, this type of factors belonging to behavioral science is not discussed in the study. Finally, organizational ecology perspective is usefully applicable in explaining the survival and performance of internationally operating companies. Accordingly, research propositions based on this perspective need to be developed and tested.
特许经营是一种快速发展的商业模式。在美国已经流行并且广为人知,也在包括韩国在内的许多国家发展。而且也有许多韩国特许经营公司正在积极开拓海外业务。据官方的一项统计,在500家特许经营公司的调查样本中已经有82家在外国运作,他们中的48%从2006年就已经开始了国外业务。这显示了韩国的特许经营公司开拓海外市场的趋势,但是该类型公司国际化的研究十分缺乏,当前非常需要。
在特许经营国际化的研究中,大多倾向于研究国际化运作的公司和仅在本国经营的公司在组织方面的差异。本研究有以下特点:首先,把资源基础理论和代理理论作为研究的理论基础,其次,用组织因素,如公司规模,历史和增长率来解释国际化的差异,第三,本研究基于组织因素差异性提出五个假设并进行实证检验。
资源基础理论和代理理论作为理论背景,根据资源理论,公司要依靠它的竞争优势和资源持续增长,这些优势和资源包括资本、人力资源、管理技能、市场信息和风险管理能力等。而代理理论将特许者和特许经营者的关系看作代理关系,代理理论将结合能力和监督能力作为特许经营公司提高国际化的两个关键因素。
基于这两个理论,提出概念模型,模型包括两类变量,一类是组织因素,如规模、增长速度、加盟价格和地理分布,另外一个是特许经营企业是否进行海外运作。我们提出以下假设来描述组织因素和特许经营公司国际化的关系。
H1. 在国外运作的特许经营公司规模大于仅在国内运作的特许经营公司。
H2. 在国外运作的特许经营公司历史长于仅在国内运作的特许经营公司。
H3. 在国外运作的特许经营公司增长速度高于仅在国内运作的特许经营公司。
H4. 在国外运作的特许经营公司加盟价格高于仅在国内运作的特许经营公司。
H5. 在国外运作的特许经营公司地理分布广于仅在国内运作的特许经营公司。
分析所用的数据来自2005年官方和社会的调查。在共2804个公司的总体中选取了315个样本。在检验假设之前,对规模, 历史, 增长和加盟价格的测量进行了信度和效度的检验, 地理分布因为是名义变量没有进行效度检验。
分析结果显示,资源基础理论中的关键因素,规模和历史与国际化有显著关系,代理理论中的地理分布于国际化有很强的关系。而增长速度和加盟价格没有显著影响。本研究的局限在于,仅考虑了组织因素,没有考虑环境因素,其次没有考虑正在进行国际化的公司,第三,国际化战略往往取决于业务扩张的预期和CEO个人原因,最后,组织生态观点也经常用于解释国际化运作的公司的生存和业绩。基于这一观点的假说需要完善和验证。