Abstract

Purpose - This study examines the role of foodservice franchisee's perceived justice(distributive, procedural, and interactional) in developing long-term orientation to franchisor and investigate the mediating role of cohesiveness and relationship satisfaction in the relationship between franchisee's perceived justice and long-term orientation to franchisor. Research design, data, and methodology - We collected data from managers and owners in foodservice franchisees located in Seoul, Korea. Among a total of 500 questionnaires, 500 questionnaires were returned. After excluding 36 invalid respondent questionnaires, 496 valid questionnaires(response rate of 99.2%) were analyzed using frequency, confirmatory factor analysis, correlations analysis, and structural equation modeling with SPSS 21 and SmartPLS 3.0. Result - The findings of this study are as follows: First, distributive justice and interactional justice had positive effects on cohesiveness, but procedural justice did not. Second, distributive justice and interactional justice had positive effects on relationship satisfaction, but procedural justice did not. Third, cohesiveness and relationship satisfaction had positive effects on franchisee's long-term orientation to franchisor. Conclusions - The implications of this study are as follows. First, this study found that procedural justice can create a high cohesiveness and identification of franchisee and also maintain a cooperative relationship with the franchisor. Second, this findings suggest that the perceived distributional and interactional justice can improve the satisfaction with the franchisor and thus positively influence the intention to maintain the relationship and the intention to recontract. Third, the results of this study indicate that the cohesiveness of franchisees can play a pivotal role to improve their satisfaction with the franchisor and pursue mutual development by continuously maintaining stable business relationship with franchisor. The findings of this study are subject to at least three limitations. First, the research subject is limited to the food service franchise shops in Seoul area, so the sample was not nationally representative of the franchise stores. Second, the perceived fairness is measured only from the point of view of the franchisee, and this study has a limitation to examine the difference between the perceived franchisee's and franchisor's justice. Third, Future research needs to identify more closely the relationships between perceived fairness and long-term orientation by gathering specific quantitative data such as the renewal rate and the business performance.