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The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth investigation of e-commerce strategy implementation in mature franchise organisations from both franchisor and franchisee perspectives.

This research employed a multiple case study method where the e-commerce strategies of two mature franchise organisations were investigated in depth. Franchising experts were interviewed to provide an additional dimension to this study.

This research found that e-commerce must be integrated with the overall business strategy for optimal franchise performance. Since all parties to the franchising relationship are affected by the introduction of e-commerce, both the franchisees’ and the franchisor’s interests must be considered when the strategy is being developed. In addition, the consumer’s perspective is central to how e-commerce is structured, and franchisees are best placed to know their customers’ needs because they are directly involved in operating their business and interfacing with customers.

A preliminary model for e-commerce structures in service and retail franchising has been developed that depends on the nature of the business, the distribution arrangements and the order fulfilment arrangements. The two main avenues in e-commerce structuring were centralisation and decentralisation.

This study contributes to knowledge through an in-depth investigation of the internal process of e-commerce implementation in franchise networks from both franchisor and franchisee perspectives.

Collaborative consumption (CC), a unique business model, provides several monetary and non-monetary benefits to customers. Several adapted theory of planned behaviour (TPB)-based models were developed and tested to understand this consumption behaviour with the findings inconsistent and fragmented. Thus, this study aims to develop a general and consistent TPB model using a meta-analytic path analysis to better understand customers’ CC adoption behaviour.

Using 37 studies, a meta-analysis was performed adopting several analytical methods; bivariate analysis, moderation analysis and path analysis.

The universal TPB model shows that factors, that is, trust, attitude, perceived environmental responsibility and communication facilities, drive both perceived usefulness and CC. However, subjective norms, such as perceived behavioural control and emotional value, drive only perceived usefulness. Moderation analysis shows that the relationships between variables used in the proposed TPB model tends to vary depending on five moderators, that is, countries’ economic development level, type of CC, sample size, sample type and survey administration method.

The consideration of only quantitative papers and papers written in English language in this meta-analysis may bias the study’s findings.

Based on the findings regarding important factors that consumers consider when adopting CC, this study provides insightful recommendations to companies facilitating CC.

By developing the universal TPB model, this study theoretically contributes to the TPB model, and by conducting the moderation test, the study contextually contributes to the TPB literature in the CC context.

Drawing on an outside-in marketing perspective, this paper aims to outline the development, implementation, evaluation and reflection of a real-world entrepreneurship education (EE) intervention with cognitive, affective and ultimately behavioural objectives.

A specific and uniform EE program specifically targeted to current “would be” entrepreneurs who were investigating the franchising business model was developed, focusing on the behavioural outcomes. The effectiveness of the EE intervention was evaluated using a quasi-experimental research design, which involved franchisees who had not participated in the EE intervention (control group) and franchisees who had participated in the EE intervention (experimental group). The administration of the national on-line survey yielded a total of 520 responses (194 in the experimental group and 326 in the control group).

The planning process in the pre-intervention stage included situation analysis, objective setting and decisions in relation to the communication strategy, i.e. content and mode. The effectiveness of the EE intervention was evaluated in the post-intervention stage. The findings indicate that EE intervention resulted in participants’ positive cognitive, affective and behavioural outcomes such as performance and relationship management. Finally, following a reflection process, additional elements covering topics related to work-life balance were incorporated into the module pertaining to an individual’s suitability to become a franchisee.

This paper proposes a conceptual framework that represents an outside-in EE approach whereby problems, audiences, objectives and communication strategies (content and method) are strategically intertwined to produce relevant, measurable and diagnostic behavioural outcomes. The EE intervention can also improve the B2B relationship between actors in a business network.

Framed within the theoretical domain of attribution theory, this study aims to investigate the antecedents of experienced regret following an entrepreneur’s business failure (defined as firm discontinuance, closure or bankruptcy) and the impact of regret on personal well-being.

The population of interest was business owners whose businesses had failed within the past five years. The data was collected from 319 failed entrepreneurs using an online survey. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses presented in this study.

External attribution, including economic uncertainty and contract restrictions, was positively related to feelings of regret. Considering internal attribution, due diligence had a positive effect on regret whereas customer relationship development ability can reduce feelings of regret. Moreover, prevention-focused entrepreneurs were likely to experience higher levels of regret when engaging in extensive consideration in using information. Finally, regret had a detrimental effect on the entrepreneurs’ well-being.

The research provides fresh perspectives on experienced regret, a relatively unexplored emotion in the entrepreneurship literature. In the context of small business operations, the locus of attribution (associated with business failure) is the key influence on learning following failed business attempts.

This study extends current knowledge of regret in the context of entrepreneurial failure, which has a significant catalytic effect on employment and entrepreneurial mobility.

This research sheds light on how emotional responses are derived from an entrepreneur’s self-assessment of their performance and attribution of blame for failure.

This paper aims to investigate the emerging relevance of gratitude within a contracted, long-term business-to-business context. Specifically, the authors examine the relationships between personality, gratitude and performance in franchisor–franchisee relationships.

A self-report survey was used to collect data from a sample of 225 franchisees drawn from across 28 franchise systems.

The results reveal that extraversion had a negative relationship with gratitude, while agreeableness and emotional stability were positively related to gratitude. Gratitude was also positively related to performance and mediated the relationship between extraversion, agreeableness and emotional stability and performance. Moreover, the results confirm that relationship length moderated the relationship between conscientiousness and gratitude.

The study shows that an individual’s personality is a factor in determining the onset of perceived gratitude, which acts as a mediating mechanism between personality and performance. This extends current research into the relational sentiment of gratitude, which has, to date, only examined the traits of the benefactor within the context of perceived benefits.

It is proposed that the knowledge of franchisees’ personal characteristics can be used to develop and maintain on-going interpersonal relationships between franchisees and franchisors. Moreover, the authors suggest that franchisors’ relationship strategy should be revised over time to maintain its effectiveness.

This paper represents the first empirical examination of the influence of personality on an individual’s proclivity to experience felt gratitude in a franchisor–franchisee relationship. This addresses one of the major issues in franchising research, which often overlooks the role of individual dispositional personality traits.

This paperaims to investigate a novel expectation by examining how framing a company as its constituent members (members frame) versus an organization (organization frame) can influence consumer evaluations of a product or service from this company.

Four studies were conducted examining the effectiveness of an organization (vs members) frame in a between-subjects experimental design (a pilot study, Studies 1a, 1b and 2). Study 2 also tested the moderating role of donation strategies (amount-focused vs frequency-focused).

Results show a members (vs organization) frame leads to a higher purchase likelihood of a product from a company engaging in corporate donations. Further, this framing effect is mediated by increased levels of consumers’ perceptions about how committed the company is to the cause and the emotion of moral elevation in response to the company’s corporate donations. Moreover, this effect is moderated when the company uses a frequency-based (vs amount-based) donation strategy.

This research contributes to the literature on message framing by demonstrating how the same information about a company may lead to differential effects on consumer evaluations, depending on whether the company is framed as its constituent members versus an organization.

This paper presents significant managerial implications for small companies, in which the owner is the company, about how they can effectively communicate corporate donations to the consumers.

This research provides a novel perspective on how the same information about a company may lead to differential effects on consumer evaluations, particularly in the context of corporate donations.

This study aims to examine the effect of country of origin (COO) on customers' value expectation and willingness to pay by employing signalling theory and cue utilisation.

The data were collected from 386 customers via an online survey in the context of Australian food retail franchise stores in China.

The findings indicate that COO origin is an important determinant of customer expectations including service quality, social value, emotional value, monetary price, behavioural price and reputation. Furthermore, the only social value was a significant predictor of willingness to pay. Although the direct effect of COO on willingness to purchase was not significant, the COO had a significant indirect effect on willingness to pay via social value. Finally, the COO has a stronger effect on monetary price expectation among customers who were aware of the country brands than those who were unaware.

The study extends the body of knowledge related to the effect of COO during the pre-purchase process and provides important implications for retailers who are looking to enter an overseas market such as China.