外文翻译--品牌热情的起因与效果

Brand passion: Antecedents and consequences作者：Noel Albert, Dwight Merunka, Pierre Valette-Florence 国籍：France出处：Journal of Business Research, 66(2013) 904-909.原文正文：Franchise systems account for more than one-third of all 17,s. retail sales. And it is forecast that by 2005, they will account for nearly hulf of U.S. retail sales. There are approximately 6,000 franchise systemsworldwide, and many new systems are being established every year. But prospective franchisers need to take care to evaluate whether they should expand their business by franchising or by opening company-owned outlets.Franchise systems are commonly classified into two types: (1) product-name and (2) business format. In product-name systems, the franchisee serves as an authorized distributor of a product for a manufacturer, such as GM car dealers,or a wholesaler, such as Coca-Cola bottlers.In business format franchising. which deals primarily with service firms. the franchiser provides the franchisee with a trademark. operating guidance,and a specific format for running a service business. Examples include McDonald’s, Jiffy Lube. Mail Boxes Etc., and so on.Most of the growth in franchising in recent years has come from business format franchise systems. The explosive growth in the servicesector of the economy bodes well for this area. It is estimated that U.S. sales from business format franchise systems will reach $1.3 trillion by 2010. Focusing on business format franchises, this article discusses the whys and wherefores of franchising, and outlines the options available to entrepreneurs and managers who are considering setting up a franchise system.WHY DO COMPANIES FRANCHISE?Much has been written about how entrepreneurs can benefit from becoming franchisees, how they should choose a franchise system, and how they should manage their franchise business. Relatively less,however, has been written about issues concerning prospective franchisers-entrepreneurial firms and managers of established companies who are considering the franchise option. We shall describe the benefits that motivate firms to franchise and illustrate how product-market char acteristics shape these motivations.Benefits of FranchisingProspective franchisers can better assess the suitabilityof this option if they understand the benefits that motivate firms to franchise. In other words, they must ask what advantages they can derive from operating franchised stores versus operating company-owned stores.Resource Constraints. Firms often franchise because they cannot readily raise the capital required to sat up company-owned stores. John 1’. Brown. former president of Kentucky Fried Chicken, maintained that it would have cost KFC $4 j0 million to establish its first 2,700 stores-a sum that was not available to the corporation in its initial strlges. It is interesting to note that even though KFC can now readily raise capital through traditional commercial means, it still continues to franchise.On the other hand, a firm seeking growth may be able to raise capital, but it may lack the managerial resources required to set up a networkof company-owned stores. Recruiting and training managers accounts for a significant percentage of the cost of growth of a firm. Franchiseessupply labor and capital together; often the joint cost of both labor and capital to the franchisor is lower than what it would be if the two inputs were procured separately. This hybrid nature of franchising enables firms to overcome the managerial resources and capital constraintproblems simultaneously.Specialization/Functional Benefits. Franchising also provides an effective way to trade off certain functions and thereby minimize production costs. In general, franchisers are more cost efficient than franchisees in performing functions that decrease in cost with a substantial level ofoutput. And franchisees are more efficient in performing functions whose average cost curve turns up relatively quickly. For example, in the fast-food business, product development and national promotion are more efficiently handled on a large scale (the franchiser), whereas the production of fast food is handled better on a relatively smaller scale (the franchisee). Monitoring Costs.Company-owned retails tores are run by employee managers who may often perform poorly if they are not supervised. A company, therefore, has to supervise its store managers. As a result, it will incur monitoring costs. But because franchisees have invested capital in their own stores, and because their earnings come from the profits of those stores, they are motivated to work harderthan company managers who do not have as much stake in the profits and success of the outlet. The corporation does not have to monitor managers who are selfmotivated and are likely to take the initiative needed to make their store succeed. Thus, franchising helps a firm lower its monitoring costs.Promotion Efficiencies.A service firm’s trademark and brand image is crucial to the successof its retail outlets. Companies typically develop their brand image and trademark through extensive advertising and promotion. But a company will benefit from mass-media advertising only if it has in place a number of stores that customers who see its ads can visit. To reap the benefits of its national or regional advertising efforts, the company needs to attain efficient scale, in terms of number of stores, as quickly as possible. Because franchising entails less monitoring and provides quicker access to capital and managerial resources, a firm can expand more quickly that way than through company-owned stores. Faster expansion through franchising, in turn, allows companies to achieve more-or atleast spread the costs out-from their advertising dollars.Risk Management.In using franchising as a tool to determine the profitability of retail locations, franchisers can, over time, convert profitable franchised locations into company-owned locations. When opening new stores, a corporation does not know with certainty the business potential and the chances of success of different locations. Franchising allows a firm to judge the profitability potential of different sites without incurring business risk. If a particular store fails, the franchisee bears the brunt of the failure. Once the profitability of different locations is established, franchisers can bring the more profitable locations under company ownership. Franchisers are not obligated to renew the franchise contract when it expires, so an ownership redirection strategy is theoretically possible. But because of ethical concerns, it may not be possible or advisable to implement such a strategy in a systematicManner.Product-Market Characteristics Shape Firms’Motivations to FranchiseThe various benefits discussed above are not mutually exclusive. In other words, a company may be motivated to franchise by all of these benefits, or by some combination of them. Itsproduct-market characteristics shape the benefits it can expect to attain from franchising. For example, a firm may not find franchising an efficientmeans of raising capital if the size and scale of its stores require an investment that would be difficult for individual entrepreneurs to make. It is not practical for department stores or supermarket chains to franchise their stores because individual entrepreneurs would find it too difficult to make the investment required for setting up a large department store or supermarket.Product-market characteristics, and their influence in deciding whether or not to franchise, differ for various firms. To evaluate the franchise option, a prospective franchiser needs to outline the linkages between the product-market characteristics of its business and the different advantages franchising provides. An illustrative set ofthese characteristics and their implications for the franchising decision are discussed below.Price Competition.Pricing, a key marketingfunction, is often competition-based. For example, when setting prices, a gas station has to take into consideration the prices of its competitor across the street. It would not be feasible for the management of a large oil company to setcompetitive prices in hundreds of gas stations across the country. In contrast, the initiative and profit involvement of franchisees ensures that they will perform the pricing function more effectively than company managers. In markets where pricing requires considerable discretion and flexibility and may not be managerially efficient to entrust to a company employee, it is beneficial for the firm to franchise. With modern communication technology, it is possible for corporations to make appropriate price decisions across a fairly large network of outlets. However, many firms, especially those just starting out, cannot maintain a sophisticated communication system. Such firms, then, can franchise and allow their franchisees to set prices in response to local competition.Physical Dispersion of Retail Stores. Monitoring costs of retail stores are affected by the degree of their physical dispersion. If geographically dispersed stores are kept under company ownership, supervisors will have to spend a lot of travel time and money going from one store to another to monitor them. Thus, the cost of monitoring company-owned stores will be high. If these scattered stores are franchised, company supervisors do not have to monitor them as much, and costs come down.On the other hand, if closely clustered stores are company-owned, a firm’s supervisors willnot have to spend as much time or money visitingthem. For these stores, the monitoring costs under company ownership are already quite low, so there is little to gain by franchising. Whateversmall gains there may be will be offset by the costs of the problems associated with franchising.The degree of store dispersion varies with market regions. For example, in more remote, rural markets, retail stores may be widely scattered,whereas in dense urban areas they are often closely clustered. Consequently, a firm will generally prefer to franchise stores in rural areas and retain locations in dense urban areas under company ownership.Consumer Preferences. Certain businesses need to be knowledgeable about the tastes and preferences of their consumers at local levels. Such firms can incur high search costs for market-related information. It is advantageous for a firm to entrust such a business to a franchsee, who is familiar with the local market and is able to gather reliable market information more efficiently. For example, in the real estate industry, a local franchisee is likely to be more aware of that area’s realty and real estate preferences than is corporate management.Labor Intensity. Labor-intensive operations require more supervision than capital-intensive ones. If a business operation involves significanthuman input at the retail level, the need for SW pervision goes up, and monitoring costs increase. Franchising enables a firm to reduce those costs if significant human input is involved at the retail level.Demand variability. The costs of monitoring the performance of store personnel rise when demand is variable because it is difficult for management to separate the decline in sales arising from poor employee performance from that which results from low demand. So if the nature of the product market entails significant demand variability, a firm can lower its monitoring costs by franchising its outlets.Repeat Customers. The incidence of repeat customers has a bearing on franchisee business behavior. Consider a franchisee who provides service that is below the standards set by the franchiser and offered by other franchisees. Customers who visit this store will be dissatisfied and are likely to develop negative perceptions of the entire franchise chain. Franchisees are more apt to engage in such free-riding behaviors if theyfeel their customers are not apt to visit their store again. For example, they may tend to free-ride if their stores are located on busy highways, where there are few repeat customers. To prevent this from happening, a franchiser will have to closely monitor these stores, with resulting higher costs. So companies usually prefer not to franchise locations that have transient customers. The monitoring costs of these locations as franchised stores would be higher than what they would be if the stores were company-owned.Changing Technology.Products and markets that require frequent capital investment for upgrading technology at the retail level will not be conducive for franchising. Many investment decisions will have a positive net value from the viewpoint of the franchiser, who holds a diversified portfolio. But for the franchisee with an undiversified portfolio, such is not the case. Accordingly. franchisers, who have differing risk preferences than franchisees, will find that an investment opportunity attractive to them may not be attractive to their franchisees.品牌热情的起因与效果作者：诺尔.艾尔伯特，顿外特.门冉卡，皮埃尔.佛罗伦斯国籍：法国出处：《商业研究》2013年第66期，904-909页中文译文：摘要：本文研究的是品牌热情的起因与效果。