PurposeThis article examines the influence of market opportunity, risk, and distance on the choice of destination country for Mexican franchises.Design/methodology/approachThe research hypotheses are developed under the theoretical approaches of institutional theory, agency theory, and transaction costs theory and were contrasted on the data obtained from 52 Mexican international franchisors operating in 37 countries as of 2016. This study uses linear regression with ordinary minimums using the STATA 13.1 software.FindingsThe results reveal that a larger market size, a greater level of economic freedom, and a smaller geographic distance are determining factors in the choice of destination country. No statistical significance was found in the variables GDP per capita, level of democracy and cultural distance.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the theoretical and practical field. On the theoretical side, this study integrates institutional theory, agency theory, and transaction cost theory to evaluate the factors of the destination country that influence the internationalization process of the franchise. Another contribution of this study is to apply theories and models of developed economies to the process of internationalization of franchises in an emerging economy. Additionally, this study is based on a model that considers the distance, opportunities and risks that are considered by Mexican franchisors in the selection of the international markets in which they maintain operations. This study contains important practical implications that can serve as relevant information for decision-making in the franchise sector and its internationalization. This data is valuable for new models of Mexican franchises that decide to start their internationalization process.

The choice of destination country of international franchise networks: the case of Mexican franchisors

PurposeSocial franchise chains have social goals rather than – or in addition to – commercial or profit-making goals. But are these social goals, disclosed by social franchisors, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and, if so, which ones?Design/methodology/approachThe authors examine the disclosure of SDG-related information on websites of 69 social franchise chains operating in Africa.FindingsThe authors' main findings show that social goals disclosed by social franchisors are aligned with certain SDGs that are general in nature and not just sector-dependent, except in the case of education.Practical implicationsThe authors' paper contributes to the practice by providing examples of the types and varieties of social goals social franchisors can pursue. Moreover, entrepreneurs might be encouraged to launch their franchise concept as franchisors who contribute to SDGs at an international, national or regional level or to join franchise chains as franchisees who contribute to SDGs at the local level.Social implicationsThe authors' findings show the potential for social franchise chains in developing countries to target and contribute to achieving SDGs.Originality/valueThe authors' paper adds to the limited literature on SDGs and, more specifically, on the role of the private sector, in particular social franchisors, in targeting and achieving SDGs.

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Social franchise chains operating in African countries: are their social goals aligned with the 2030 United Nations sustainable development goals?

Although previous research has examined the role of franchising for the economic development of countries, no empirical study to date has investigated the importance of franchising for social, infrastructural, and institutional development. The authors address this research gap by applying research results from the field of sustainable entrepreneurship and highlight that franchising has a positive impact on economic, social, institutional and infrastructural development.,This study uses a fixed-effects model on a panel dataset for 2006–2015 from 49 countries to test the hypothesis that franchising positively influences various dimensions of country development such as economic social institutional and infrastructural development.,The findings highlight that franchising has a positive impact on the economic, social, infrastructural, and institutional development of a country. Specifically, the results show that the earlier and the more franchising systems enter a country, the stronger the positive impact of franchising on the country's economic, social, institutional, and infrastructural development.,This study has several limitations that provide directions for further research. First, the empirical investigation is limited by the characteristics of the data, which are composed of information from 49 countries (covering a period of 10 years). Because franchising is not recognized as a form of entrepreneurial governance in many emerging and developing countries, the available information is mainly provided by the franchise associations in the various countries. Hence, there is a need to collect additional data in each country and to include additional countries. Second, although the authors included developed and developing countries in the analysis, the authors could not differentiate between developed and developing countries when testing the hypotheses, because the database was not sufficiently complete. Third, future studies should analyze the causality issue between franchising and development more closely. The role of franchising in development may be changing depending on different unobserved country factors, economic sector characteristics, or development stages.,What are the practical implications of this study for the role of franchising in the development of emerging and developing economies? Because public policy in emerging and developing countries suffers from a lack of financial resources to improve the social, infrastructural and institutional environment, entrepreneurs, such as franchisors who expand into these countries, play an important role for these countries' development. In addition to their entrepreneurial role of exploring and exploiting profit opportunities, they are social, institutional, and political entrepreneurs who may positively influence country development (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2011; Shepard and Patzelt, 2011). Specifically, the findings highlight that countries with an older franchise sector (more years of franchise experience) may realize first-mover advantages and hence larger positive spillover effects on their economic, social, institutional and infrastructural development than countries with a younger franchise sector. Hence, governments of emerging and developing countries have the opportunity and responsibility to reduce potential market entry barriers and provide additional incentives for franchise systems in order to trigger these positive spillover effects. The authors expect that the spillover effects from the franchise sector on the economic, institutional, social and infrastructural development of a country are stronger in emerging and developing countries than in developed countries.,Previous research has focused on the impact of franchising on the economic development of a country, such as its growth of gross domestic product (GDP), employment, business skills, innovation and technology transfer. This study extends the existing literature by going beyond the impact of franchising on economic development: the results show that franchising as an entrepreneurial activity offers opportunities for economic, social, institutional, and infrastructural development, all of which are particularly important for emerging and developing economies. The findings of this study contribute to the international franchise and development economics literature by offering a better understanding of the impact of franchising on country development.

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Franchising and country development: evidence from 49 countries

Inequality and Universal Basic Income: The Case of Ecuador

This study analyses the influence of city size on life satisfaction among the Ecuadorian population. It distinguishes rural from urban residents and looks at the effect of environmental management. Using individual and canton-level variables, an ordinal logit model is estimated. Results suggest that individuals living in the most populated cantons report a lower level of life satisfaction. This effect varies for urban and rural residents. Environmental management is positive for life satisfaction.

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Yasmin Salazar

Papers

Franchising and country development: evidence from 49 countries

Inequality and Universal Basic Income: The Case of Ecuador

The influence of cities and their environmental management on life satisfaction: urban and rural perspectives