The Effect of Franchisor Bonding Activities on Franchisee's Relationship Quality and Long-term Relationship Orientation

This study is to examine the effects of franchisor’s relational bonding strategies on social satisfaction, economic satisfaction, trust toward the franchisor, and long-term orientation and investigate how social satisfaction and economic satisfaction and trust constructs play mediating roles between the franchisor’s relational bonding strategies and long-term orientation. The data were collected from 496 foodservice business franchisees. The findings can be summarized as follows: Firstly, structural, social, and economic bonding constructs influence social satisfaction. Secondly, all of relational bonding factors had adirect effect on economic satisfaction. Thirdly, trust in a franchisor was influenced by structural and economic bonding except for social bonding. Fourthly, social economic satisfaction had a statistically direct effect on trust and it did not have a direct effect on long-term orientation. Fifthly, economic satisfaction had a direct effect on trust as well as long-term orientation. Lastly, trust in a franchisor had a positive effect on long-term orientation.