Franchise ownership types and noneconomic performance among quick service restaurants: do family operated franchises receive fewer health code violations?

Abstract

Using an agency theory perspective combined with arguments related to the importance of socioemotional wealth (SEW), we evaluate the distinctions among family-, lone-founder-, and corporate-owned and operated restaurants regarding their impact on relevant noneconomic goals in the franchising context (i.e., health code violations). Because of agency issues and family-centric long-term motivations (e.g., desires to enrich members of the family and maintain family ownership across generations), we predict family franchises will place a greater emphasis on noneconomic outcomes and should outperform both lone-founder and corporate restaurants (i.e., receive less health-code violations). Relatedly, we also predict lone-founder franchises will receive fewer violations than corporate outlets due to their enhanced identification with the franchise. We test our hypotheses with a sample of three large fast-food chains in the Southeastern United States. Surprisingly, our results indicate that family-owned restaurants perform worse on noneconomic outcomes than both lone-founder- and corporate-owned restaurants. We discuss the implications of these findings to offer contributions to family business research and franchise practitioners alike.