Gratitude in franchisor-franchisee relationships: does personality matter?

Purpose 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. Design/methodology/approach A self-report survey was used to collect data from a sample of 225 franchisees drawn from across 28 franchise systems. Findings 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. Research limitations/implications 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. Practical implications 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. Originality/value 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.