Data Mining in Franchise Organizations

Abstract

Franchising has been a popular business approach given the high rate of business failures (Justis & Judd, 2002; Thomas & Seid, 2000), and its popularity continues to increase in today’s e-business-centered global economy. For example, Entrepreneur magazine¾well known for its Franchise 500 listing¾in early 2001 included a category called Tech Businesses into its Franchise Zone which contains subcategories of Internet Businesses, Tech Training, and Miscellaneous Tech Businesses. At the time of this writing, 35 companies are on the list of Entrepreneur.com. Netchising, combing the power of the Internet for global demand-and-supply processes and international franchising arrangements for local responsiveness, seems to rise as an effective global e-business growth strategy (Beck & Morrison, 2000; Morrison, Beck & Bouquet, 2000). The Netchising business model “offers potentially huge benefits over traditional exporting or foreign direct investment approaches to globalization” and is “a powerful concept with potentially broad applications” (Davenport, 2000, p. 52).