Role of Confirmation of Franchisees’ Normative and Predictive Expectations

Franchising is a fastest growing and dominant form of retailing throughout the world. It is a favorable strategy for managing entrepreneurial growth. Building up and maintaining a sustainable relationship with franchisees is a crucial challenge that franchisors are faced with, and paying attention to franchisees' expectations is one of the key success factors for franchisors. However, an important distinction among the different elements of expectations has been overlooked in the franchising literature. Expectations are comprised of both normative (macro-level) and predictive (micro-level) elements. This study aims to investigate the concomitant influence of the (dis)confirmation of both the normative and predictive expectations of a franchisee in relationship with his/her franchisor. For this purpose, the data collected from 304 franchised units within the insurance sector were analyzed using structural equation modeling by Lisrel 8.5 and SPSS 22.0. According to the results of hypothesis testing, the positive effects of perceived support and communication openness on relationship satisfaction are significant, and the negative effects of perceived support and communication openness on perceived conflicts are also significant. Furthermore, the results indicated that the (dis)confirmation of both the normative and predictive expectations of a franchisee mediates the impact of the perceived support and communication openness on his/her perceived conflict and relationship satisfaction.