Market orientation in franchise networks: a contrast analysis of franchisors and franchisees views

Abstract

Market orientation is considered as key to organizational survival and performance. In inter-firm settings, previous research indicates that it contributes to the overall performance of marketing channels. This research note investigates the perception of market orientation in franchise networks. Based on a dyadic multi-sectorial sample of 27 franchisors and 720 of their franchisees, the study examines how franchisors and franchisees perceive market orientation and to what extent their perceptions are concordant views. The underlying hypothesis is that a common view of the network orientation facilitates co-ordination and eventually performance. Results indicate that although the spirit of market orientation may be partially shared within the franchise channel, its consequences in terms of performance are not uniform.

Keywords:

• customer orientation
• market orientation
• France
• franchising
• performance

Acknowledgment

This research has been funded by the French Franchise Federation.

Notes

1. This note derives from a larger study supported by the FFF (French Franchise Federation) that asked for a survey of organizational culture in franchise networks. So, our basis for driving franchisee sampling was organizational culture. Organizational culture was assessed through items from the Organizational Culture Profile (O'Reilly, Chatman, and Caldwell 1991) and items from the Market Orientation Scale (Deshpande, Farley, and Webster 1993).