Managing a Franchise in the Fully Franchised Form: A Case Study of a Franchise System's Shift from a Plural Form to a Fully Franchised Form

Sammanfattning: Franchise theorists have failed to explore all possible organizational forms in a franchise system. The plural form has been the dominant topic of interest during the last two decades, while the fully franchised form has been marginalized to an unlikely future outcome. This study aims to bridge this research gap and provide a deep insight in the mechanisms at play in the fully franchised form. Through an in-depth case study of a Nordic multi-unit franchisee and their franchisor, qualitative empirics are provided to a quantitatively dominated research field. The case analysis shows that the fully franchised form has some major implications on how organizational structure, control systems and strategy making are used to manage the key challenges in a franchise system. Important findings are the franchisor's worsened market insight, increased span of control and impaired cooperation with the franchisees.