Research has shown that although franchise contract duration tends to be stable, it does change from time to time; yet few studies have focused on such changes in contract duration. We propose hypotheses regarding changes in contract duration based on transaction cost theory and learning arguments, and test these hypotheses using panel data from the French Franchise Federation for the period 2009–2017. The results show that the issue of control remains central to the adjustment of contract duration. We also demonstrate that experienced franchisors tend to adjust the contract duration more frequently. These results point to a conception of learning that goes beyond simple foresight, and refers instead to the routines used in the management of the network.

研究表明，虽然特许经营合同期限趋于稳定，但确实会不时发生变化；然而，很少有研究关注合同期限的这种变化。我们基于交易成本理论和学习论证提出了关于合同期限变化的假设，并使用法国特许经营联合会 2009-2017 年期间的面板数据测试这些假设。结果表明，控制问题仍然是合同期限调整的核心。我们还表明，经验丰富的特许人倾向于更频繁地调整合同期限。这些结果指出了一种超越简单预见的学习概念，而是指网络管理中使用的例程。