TASA ID: 11532
PREFACE
International franchising has fascinated me for many years. I still get excited seeing a familiar trademark when driving down a street in New Delhi, Cairo, or Paris. While traveling outside the United States, my wife and I will frequently play a game seeing who can point to a recognized sign first such as McDonald’s or Gold’s Gym with the same exuberance of children playing car-trip games.
Much has been written in recent years extolling the virtues of franchising as it exists in the United States. However, there has been a dearth of information and analysis of the economic impact and potential of franchising, or similar economic expansion systems, in developing countries. Most of what has been written about international franchising has dealt with the legalities pertaining to franchise law, licensing, and trademark and patent law, and their disparities from country to country. In spite of the scarcity of academic and research analysis, the period between the 1980s and the early-2000s witnessed a dramatic increase in international franchising and similar commercial expansion activity. This has occurred not only in Western Europe but also in Asia, South and Central America, Eastern Europe and, to a more modest extent, Africa and the Middle East. In this article, I attempt to point out some of the benefits and consequences of importing Western (essentially American) franchises and franchising techniques into developing economies.