Autonomy in franchising

The debate is still raging among leadership and organizational behaviour researchers: which leadership style leads to better job satisfaction and work performance among team members? From autocratic to participative management, various models coexist in organizations and have evolved over time to reflect societal changes and expectations. Similarly governance issues in business-format franchising should also be scrutinized. Traditionally, business-format franchising has been based on a directive leadership model where franchisors develop the rules while franchisees execute the strategy. Deviating from the traditional model of concept uniformity, certain franchisors have implemented new forms of leadership throughout their franchise network and have fostered innovation, creative and entrepreneurial spirit in their franchisees. These new models take different forms and shapes and are called ‘freedom franchise', ‘quasi-franchise' or ‘entrepreneurial franchise'. The purpose of the chapter is to investigate the various forms of autonomy in business-format franchising and to research the viability and the justification of autonomy in business-format franchising. A parallel could be made with the research in the field of leadership. Autocratic versus democratic leadership styles lead to different results in terms of productivity, and employee satisfaction in particular. And, more recently, transformational leadership has been linked to innovativeness and creativity in corporations. This chapter is a conceptual chapter that lays the foundations for future research opportunities based on existing leadership models that may predict future directions in governance models for business-format franchising.