Relationship between customer orientation, entrepreneurial orientation, and firm performance in the Vietnam franchising industry

The franchising industry in Vietnam has received lots of attention from international franchise brands due to its high potential growth and encouragement from the Vietnam Government these recent years. Franchisee firms play important roles in the franchise system as they represent foreign franchise brands and connect directly to local customers. Hence, it is worth researching the determinants of franchisee performance, especially examining the roles of entrepreneurial orientation in the franchising industry based on franchisee perspectives. This study aims to investigate factors that affect franchisee performance through the mediating roles of customer orientation through the lens of the resource-based view theory. The findings show that the franchisee performance antecedents are customer orientation and entrepreneurial orientation, with two dimensions: risk-taking and innovativeness. Customer orientation fully mediates the relationship between innovativeness and franchisee performance. Theoretically, this research contributes to the franchising literature by adding the roles of entrepreneurial orientation and customer orientation based on franchisee perspectives.