Abstract This study provides a new explanation of the ownership structure of franchise firms by highlighting a trade-off between adaptation and control under increasing uncertainty. Franchise chains are formed to reduce transaction costs by combining franchisee outlets as an adaptation mechanism and company-owned outlets as a control mechanism. We argue that under low to moderate uncertainty, franchisors prioritize local responsiveness to profit opportunities by operating a lower proportion of company-owned outlets (PCO); by contrast, under high environmental uncertainty, franchisors prefer more central control through a higher PCO to coordinate interdependent local market outlets better. Hence, the franchisor must find an optimal PCO by balancing the PCO decreasing effect of higher local adaptation with the PCO increasing effect of higher central coordination under increasing uncertainty. Therefore, we posit a U-shaped relationship between the PCO and environmental uncertainty. Data from German and Swiss franchise systems provide support for the study’s hypotheses.

中文翻译：

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特许连锁的所有权结构：适应与控制之间的权衡

摘要这项研究通过强调在不确定性增加的情况下适应与控制之间的权衡取舍，为特许经营企业的所有权结构提供了新的解释。通过将特许经营网点作为适应机制和公司自营网点作为控制机制相结合，形成了减少连锁成本的特许经营链。我们认为，在中低不确定性的情况下，特许经营者通过经营较低比例的公司所有网点（PCO）来优先考虑本地对利润机会的响应。相比之下，在环境不确定性较高的情况下，特许经营者更喜欢通过较高的PCO进行更多的中央控制，以更好地协调相互依赖的本地市场。因此，在不确定性增加的情况下，特许人必须通过平衡较高的局部适应性的PCO降低效果和较高的中央协调的PCO增大效果来找到最佳的PCO。因此，我们在PCO和环境不确定性之间建立了U型关系。来自德国和瑞士特许经营系统的数据为该研究的假设提供了支持。