Exploring franchise system development in France

• We replicated a model of franchise start-up developed in New Zealand in France.
• The research uses case studies to address implementation (practice) of franchising processes.
• Three stages of franchise implementation are identified.
• We identify a number of clear differences between the New Zealand and French approaches to franchising.

The process of implementing successful franchise system has received limited attention in the literature. The purpose of our paper is to replicate in France a franchise development model developed in New Zealand that identifies significant sequentially activities in the franchising process. Using a case study approach franchisors in ten French start-up franchisees were interviewed in order to determine how they applied the franchising process identified in the New Zealand study. A quantitative measure is derived as the basis of comparison for different approaches in the two countries. Our findings lend some support for the model, while revealing interesting differences between franchise development in the New Zealand study and the franchising start-up environment in France.