A new rationale is presented for why an elite may want to expand the franchise even in the absence of threats to the established order. Expanding the franchise can turn politicians away from particularistic politics based on ad-personam redistribution within the elite and foster competition based on programs with diffuse benefits. If these programs are valuable, a majority of the elite votes in...

In this paper we propose five heuristic procedures for the solution of the multiple competitive facilities location problem. A franchise of several facilities is to be located in a trade area where competing facilities already exist. The objective is to maximize the market share captured by the franchise as a whole. We perform extensive computational tests and conclude that a two-step heuristic...

Franchising has been popular as a growth strategy for small businesses; it is even more so in today’s global and information-based economy. In early 2001, Entrepreneur magazine—well known for its Franchise 500 listing—added a Tech Businesses category to its Franchise Zone with three subcategories: Internet Businesses, Tech Training, and Miscellaneous Tech Businesses. This study applies Herbert ...

____________________________ The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the College of Business Administration at the University of Rhode Island. We would like to thank Tian Xiao at NAIC for useful comments and Xuanjuan Chen, doctoral student at University of Rhode Island, for computational assistance. We also thank participants at the 2003 Western Risk and Insurance Conference. ...

Hybrid organizational forms such as franchise systems join two or more independent parties under a contract. The ability of each party to achieve its goals depend upon the relative bargaining power in the relationship established by the contract. Using transaction cost economics and Porter’s (1980) characterization of sources of bargaining power, this paper argues that the franchisor can make i...

in business format franchising agreements, franchisee, while dependent to other party of the contract (franchisor), follows the method of business belonging to franchisor. franchisee use of the system leads to many obligations such as payment of franchise fees, secrecy of know how, non competition and making available all necessary factors to use the system. irrespective of the law which govern...

In the first part of the dissertation, we focus on the retailer's problem of forecasting demand for products in a category (including those that they have never carried before), optimizing the selected assortment, and customizing the assortment by store to maximize chain-wide revenues or profits. We develop algorithms for demand forecasting and assortment optimization, and demonstrate their use...

Consumers respond not only to the price and the product attributes, but also to the service effort provided by the seller. Empirically quantifying or measuring the service effort is difficult because it is often unobservable. This paper proposes an empirical framework of the role of service effort in demand, along with other traditional marketing mix instruments. The model allows us to measure ...

This article reexamines the administered contracts approach to regulation in light of recent empirical research that establishes the importance of transaction-costs in the organizational choice and design decisions. After reviewing the fundamentals of transaction cost reasoning and the franchise bidding-versus-regulation debate, the study surveys the empirical literature on franchise bidding, c...