Influence of Franchisors' Competitive Strategies on Network Size: The Impact of Entry Timing Decision

This article provides evidence on the strategies that lead to a greater franchise network size. Though the empirical literature has studied the ownership structure and the incentive policy, our work expands the analysis by including another important source of differences in the strategies implemented by firms: the stage of the life cycle at which the firm enters. The objective of this study is to examine whether pioneers implement a different strategy than fast followers, early majority entrants, and late majority entrants. Our results confirm the differences in competitive strategy between entrants at each stage of the industry life cycle.