آیا سرمایه فرانچایزینگ رستوران جایگزین یا مکملی برای بدهی است؟ Is restaurant franchising capital a substitute for or a complement to debt?

1. Introduction As a business format, many restaurants operate franchise outlets together with company-operated outlets, which is called a dual distribution system. Previous studies have examined which factors trigger franchising inparticular industries (Lafontaine, 1992;Rubin, 1978; Scott, 1995). There are two major theories that purport to explain why businesses choose to go into franchising: agency theory (Jensen and Meckling, 1976; Lafontaine, 1992) and resource scarcity theory (Caves and Murphy, 1976; Ozanne and Hunt, 1971). Agency theory posits that agents (i.e., outlet managers) and principals (i.e., owners) each have their own set of unaligned interests. Unsurprisingly, agents tend to pursue their own interests. For example, outlet managers may not make a sincere effort to reduce all costs or increase sales because those efforts do not directly benefit them. Thus, agency costs exist between outlet managers and restaurant owners (Brickley et al., 1991; Jensen and Meckling, 1976; Lafontaine, 1992; Rubin, 1978). The franchising system is a solution to this problem because it converts outlet managers into entrepreneurs who receive residual profits from franchise operations. Accordingly, the entrepreneurs’ interests are more closely aligned with the interests of the owners, which minimizes agency costs. On the other hand, the resource scarcity theory developed by Oxenfeldt and Kelly (1969) posits that owners decide to franchise when they have difficulty obtaining adequate managerial resources. One of the most important of these resources is financial capital (Caves and Murphy, 1976; Oxenfeldt and Kelly, 1969; Ozanne and Hunt, 1971).When a brand owner has difficulty obtaining enoughfinancial capitalto expand,the franchising systemoffers an effective business format for expansion via franchisees.