Zooming in on co-creation practices of international franchisors

Abstract

There is limited knowledge on value co-creation in international franchising despite the collaborative nature of this major foreign entry mode. This article zooms in on international franchisors' co-creation practices through in-depth interviews with 28 French franchisors and 25 of their foreign franchisees, offering three main contributions. First, the interviews reveal that franchisors do not always co-create value with their franchisees. Instead, franchisor-franchisee co-dependency manifests in both value co-creation and facilitation. Second, this research offers a typology of the domains of co-creation in franchising, showing that franchisors can participate in foreign franchisees' value creation processes during the set up and launch of the franchise abroad, training and knowledge dissemination, adaptation of the offering, and management of problems. Third, it offers a typology of seven franchisor co-creation styles – mentor, custodian, broker, partner, strategically focused, controlling principal, and chameleon – and their underlying dimensions in terms of franchisor activities and preferences. The mapping of co-creation domains and styles offers international franchisors a detailed account of the practical ways to support their foreign franchisees' value creation processes depending on their preferences, resources, and capabilities.