In 2004, 9.4 percent of the adult South African population was involved in the creation of new businesses. Are these skills and competencies acquired in the franchise experience transferable outside the franchise environment.
Literature Review
A Conceptual Review
Having identified entrepreneurship as a key factor in driving the growth of the small business sector, this concept now needs to be critically examined. Furthermore, this debate is based on the idea that entrepreneurship can be developed, which makes it contradict the thesis of the Great Person school of thought.
Entrepreneurial Influences
This influence is usually channeled through the role of family, friends and more broadly. It is assumed that this competence consists of the set of psychological and biographical characteristics of the entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurial Skills
Once this is achieved, it is necessary to increase awareness of the business through branding, advertising and other sales strategies. Having undertaken a detailed review of the entrepreneurship concept and its influencing factors, both from an environmental and personal characteristics perspective, it is now important to comment on a key entrepreneurial function identified in the definitional framework, that of new venture creation.
A Conceptual Review
Business franchising is similar to product franchising in terms of the franchisee's access to the product or service and its trademark and corporate identity. Authors such as Stanwolh et al. (1995) and Parker and Illetschko (2007) also attach great importance to the role of the franchisor as a general business advisor and mentor.
Franchising and Inexperienced Business Owners
Operations Manual: This is a comprehensive set of guidelines and often legally binding instructions from the franchisor that the franchisee must follow in the process of duplicating the business (Parker and Illetschko, 2007). Nevertheless, the transfer process itself is considered to be effective due to the mechanisms highlighted in the previous paragraphs (Siggel et ai, 2003).
Franchising and the regulatory environment
Sanghavi (1998) is of the opinion that this transfer of technology is a most ominous developmental impact of franchising in the case of emerging or transition economies. In the most typical franchise scenario, the presence of different franchise outlets within the boundaries of a shopping center leads to a growth in the market (for both franchise and related non-franchise product), increase in job availability and search and distribution of information within that area (Siggel et ai, 2003).
Franchising and entrepreneurship
These authors found that a large proportion of the franchise systems they studied reported success in running systems that enabled franchisees to unleash meaningful innovative activities in their businesses. The conclusion of this is that the franchisee relies heavily on the security of being able to rely on the franchisor's institutional knowledge and experience (Sardy and Alon, 2007). I I Although one of the aims of this article is to determine how franchisees relate to the entrepreneurial concept, it is not the main aim to answer this question per se.
Although the section reviewed above is a synthesis of key academic works that advance the debate on the relationship between franchising and entrepreneurship, there is something troubling. We rounded off the entrepreneurship segment with a description of the process of creating a new company, which in the context of this paper is a necessary entrepreneurial result.
Methodology
Focus Group
Denscombe (2003) advocates the interchangeable use of qualitative techniques in order to validate the findings of the previously used method. This was done after the interview stage as a method of unification and validation, with lines of questioning broadly covering the same ground as that of the interview process. The researcher wanted the profile of the group to reflect a balance of exploration in the areas of small business, entrepreneurship and franchising.
15 This is a personal opinion of the researcher, and not an intended strength I:> of the research desion I:>. It was the researcher's belief that this venue would lend an element of professionalism and legitimacy to the meeting, although again it should be noted that all participants were clearly informed of the nature and purpose of the research.
Alternative Methodological Consideration
It is reasonable to assume that if a new franchisee were to leave the system and open an independent business, there would have been no reason for the original franchisor to maintain contact with this person, and even if he did, there was no incentive for this. information that must be provided to us. In the event that the franchisee has set up an independent business while still part of the franchise network, the franchisor may not be aware of these secondary activities, and even if he does, he may have been reluctant to identifying the franchisee in question as it could have been associated with the connotation that not everything fit within the franchise relationship and the success of the franchise system, forcing the franchisee to explore other business options. One way around this would have been to contact financial institutions who would have collected such information had they been approached for financing for the post-franchising activities desired in our identified profile.
This approach would also have made the assumption that these post-franchise companies were actually funded by external funding sources, "which may not necessarily have been the case. The fact that the researcher was able to identify suitable cases by chance during the interview process means that this approach becomes viable for further research interventions in this field.
Data Analysis
In order to do this, the transcript of the focus group was analyzed, with the key themes and representations. This chapter reports on and provides critical commentary on the results of the primary research. A second question posed to the panel of experts inquired about the constraints on growth of the small business sector.
Yet not one of the franchisees interviewed talked about going into a business to take advantage of an opportunity. Another common response was found to be the attraction of the packaged nature of a franchise operation.
Training
Mike and Brad received the manuals, familiarized themselves with the content, and spent the remainder of their time learning hands-on in an existing shop. This researcher sees no point in mentioning them together in this section, as the entire sample group mentioned it as part of their training. Ashley had a similar experience in that his training was highly specialized for the nature of the service, but he also spent a lot of time with franchisors learning how they work on financial projections, their strategies for attracting the right talent and their approach to marketing the service to customers. .
20 The literature was clear in its classification of the operational manual as a means of knowledge transfer. We have an operations manual with dividers for every facet of the business and a local store marketing manual as part of our tools of.
Mentorship
Knowing that the avenue was open, and using it when necessary, was considered good enough. This reflects the general situation of entrepreneurial mentoring in South Africa (Watson, 2004), even though mentoring is a commonly associated phenomenon. That said, in the cases where it is done proactively, it seems to work well and to the satisfaction and development of the franchisee.
The comments from those in the sample group who agreed that mentorship occulted successfully lend credence to Du Toit's (2004) finding that the franchise environment was apt to implement and benefit from stronger forms of mentoring as a tool for entrepreneurial development. This is important as the mentorship concept has enormous potential to develop and polish the entrepreneurial skills of inexperienced individuals (Watson, 2004).
Innovation
This was seen as beneficial as there was no real risk to the franchisee in the event that the innovation was not successful. Although different categories emerged in relation to Johannessen et ai's (200 I) grouping, it must be stated that the purpose of the innovations shown by the sample group were more consumer-oriented and were typically implemented to increase the level of customer satisfaction in the clientele. These authors also mentioned that it was consumer-oriented innovation that formed the basis for the creation of new ventures, leading us to suggest that the franchise system is conducive to stimulating the type of innovative behavior prevalent in entrepreneurs.
Franchisors exercised control over the process, but also appeared to support it in the main. In addition to this, we find that the franchise system tends to generate the type of innovative activity that is innovation stimulating in nature.
Summary
In case they changed, respondents were asked to explain what they believe led to the change. It is highlighted again that all but one of the respondents reported increases in the level of strength in this competency. The most substantial gains were made in the areas of marketing/sales and operations management, with all respondents reporting increased strength.
Overall, however, there were many franchise-specific constructs that supported this development. There was a unanimous response that franchisees expected to remain in the business environment for the foreseeable future.
Independent versus Franchised Structures
All things from the tips I got on the rise, the help of stqff. It is interesting to note that none of the franchises talked about the lack of skills being a hindrance to any future plans. This section reported on franchisees' perceptions of the future, and what the impact of franchise ownership was on those perceptions.
All but one in the sample group believed that they would participate in future entrepreneurial events. The panelists reiterated the role that franchises could play in transforming the economy and were clear that there is a role for government in expanding the network of the franchise system.
Conclusion
It was decided early in the study that the members of the franchisee sample could not be classified as true entrepreneurs within our framework. The ultimate goal in this case is the stimulation of the small business sector, taking into account the positive role that small business sectors play in global economic development. If you receive ongoing training as part of the franchise agreement, describe this to me.
What would be some of the reasons that would lead people to start a small business? Do you believe that franchising as a concept should be promoted/given greater prominence and support at government level as one of the ways to broaden the pool of small businesses? She also had papers accepted to read at the International Society of Franchising's annual conference.
He was instrumental in developing the new small business development strategy adopted in 2005 and played a role in developing the franchise strategy in 2000.
