The influence of the plural form on internationalizationEvidence from the US and French franchising networks

Two important topics often explored in the franchising literature are networkinternationalization and plural form. Nevertheless, these two research streams have notconverged so far. The purpose of this paper is therefore to explore if there is any significantlink between the plural form and the internationalization of the franchising networks. And ifthe response is positive, "is the influence of the plural form on network internationalizationpositive or negative?". The empirical study involving 898 US and French networks amongwhich 42.1% are international networks highlights the existence of significant differencesbetween international networks and purely domestic networks in terms of plural form. Indeed,the plural form rate for networks having operations abroad is lower than this for domesticnetworks when combining the two samples of networks and also in the French market.Moreover, in these two cases, the results of the logistic regression models underline thesignificant and negative impact of the plural form on internationalization. The results arenevertheless insignificant in the US context. Some elements of explanations of the findingsare presented.