Determinants of E-Commerce Strategy in Franchising: A Resource-Based View
Rozenn Perrigot and Thierry Pénard
International Journal of Electronic Commerce,
Volume 17, Number 3, Spring 2013, p. 109.
Abstract: E-commerce has grown tremendously over the past decade in most business sectors, including the franchising sector. This paper applies the resource-based view to examine e commerce strategy in franchise networks and to identify the potential determinants of the presence of transactional capabilities on franchisors’ Web sites. Our empirical study is based on 486 U.S. franchise networks in the retail and service sectors. When data were collected in 2009, only 20 percent of the sampled franchisors had adopted an e commerce strategy. Our main findings show that the percentage of company-owned stores and network size have a positive impact on the implementation of e commerce strategy, whereas network age has a negative effect. Moreover, a franchisor is more likely to launch a transactional Web site in the retail sector and the hotel and restaurant sector. This paper highlights the relevance of using the resource-based view to investigate e commerce strategy and provides guidance to franchisors on how to implement a transactional Web site.
Key Words and Phrases: E-commerce, encroachment, franchising, resource-based view, transactional Web site.