Franchisors’ Support Services and Their Consequences:

Purpose - This study explores the influence of franchisors’ supports on franchisees financial performance, overall satisfaction and intention to remain. Research design, data, and methodology – Given the exploratory design of the investigation, purposive sampling technique was used to select twenty-six (26) franchisees as key informants for this study. In-depth face-to-face interviews were conducted leading to generation of rich qualitative data on the phenomenon of support services in the Nigeria franchise system. Results - Results indicate that at both the initial and growing stages, training and management service supports have marked influence on franchisees business outcomes. However, findings revealed that at the initial stage, the impact of training is greatest but this impact subsequently declines as franchisees master the nuances of the business. Management services on the other hand maintains a constant relevance through all stages of franchisees business. Conclusions - Three key conclusions were drawn from the findings of this study. First, the quality of initial and ongoing supports have consequences for the long-term health of franchisees and franchisors’ businesses. Second, poor management of franchisees’ expectations and perception of supports could damage franchise partnerships. Third, franchisees form their expectation of supports largely from the nature of initial supports provided by the franchisors.