Franchising rhetoric: a cross cultural study

Anna Watson
Hertfordshire Business
School
University of Hertfordshire
Hatfield
Hertfordshire AL10 9AB
UK
 +44 1707 28 5535
 [email protected]
Owen Wright
Griffith Business School
Nathan campus, Griffith
University,
170 Kessels Road, Nathan
QLD 4111,
Australia
 +61 7 3735 3557
 [email protected]
Lola Dada
Lancaster University
Management School
Lancaster, LA1 4YX
UK
 +44 1524 510711
 [email protected]
Franchising rhetoric: a cross cultural study
This study explores the rhetoric franchisors use in digital communication
of their franchise concept in a cross cultural context. Research shows that
recruitment of suitable franchisees is a key challenge for franchise
organisations. Franchisees have a broad range of franchising
opportunities to select from (Michael, 2003), and thus, “..franchisors
must compete with each other by marketing their opportunity to
franchisees” (Zachary et al, 2011, p. 630). Whilst little research has
considered the promotion of franchise opportunities to date, the study by
Zachary et al (2011) is a notable exception. They suggest franchisors will
seek to project their organisational identity into the promotional rhetoric
(in this instance their web promotional material) in order to attract
potential franchisees that “…align with their core values and beliefs”
(Zachary et al, 2011, p. 630). In their study of US franchises they found
franchisors use entrepreneurial and market oriented rhetoric to attract
franchisees.
This study seeks to build upon the noteworthy work of Zachary et al
(2011) by considering how web promotional rhetoric may differ across
different cultural contexts. Given different levels of maturity of franchise
sectors across countries, and differing cultures, the rhetoric franchisors
use to attract potential franchisees may not be the same. It is crucial to
understand whether this rhetoric differs across cultures so as to know
how it affects the promotion of franchise brands, especially for those
franchise brands considering international expansion.
In addition, as Dant (2008) has highlighted it is important to consider
(and compare) franchising in markets beyond the US. As such, this
paper contributes to the emerging stream of franchise branding literature
by examining the rhetoric used by franchisors when promoting their
concepts to potential franchisees in trade franchise directories,
comparing the rhetoric across four cultures: the UK, Australia, India and
South Africa. The paper explores whether culture, in terms of
individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and assertiveness
influences how franchisors communicate their franchise brand, as well as
considering the impact of differing levels of maturity and regulatory
context of the franchise industry. A computerised content analysis
programme, DICTION, is used to enable thematic content analysis
(Smith & Taffler, 2000) of franchise promotional materials in order to
identify if cultural differences exist. DICTION has been widely used to
reveal latent dimensions in corporate texts (Craig & Brennan, 2012;
Ober, Zhao, Davis, & Alexander, 1999; Short & Palmer, 2008; Sydserff
& Weetman, 2002). The results reveal that franchise promotional
narratives (as part of the branding process) reflect the culture in which
the franchise brand is located. That is, the communication of franchise
brands tends to be influenced by country culture. The management
implications of this are explored. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the
first study to explore franchise branding narrative in a cross cultural
context, and indeed, is the first to explore the semantic features of
franchise brand promotions outside of the US.
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