The Difference between Successful and Unsuccessful Franchisees: An Insight into German Franchise Networks
Christiane Gaul
University of Latvia, Latvia
c.gaul@andre-media.de
Abstract
The quest for finding suitable franchise partners has been a challenge for many franchisors across borders. The research results of this paper give hints for the question, which skills have to be strongly developed in order to select profitable franchise partners. For this purpose, data collection took place with mostly German franchisors that were asked to describe their point of view on their most successful and their least successful franchisees. The contribution displays the relevant skills and requirements of successful franchisees compared to unsuccessful franchisees. The skills and requirements are divided into hard skills, soft skills, and local knowledge. Each component of the three different skills is investigated for both groups. The differences are all in favor of successful franchisees. The range of values and their distinct relevance make a significant contribution to franchisee selection research and close a niche gap in literature.
Keywords: franchising; franchisee selection; success criteria; skills