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They Are Jolly Good Fellows! A Framework for Antecedents and Consequences of Peer Trust in Franchise Networks

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Design and Management of Interfirm Networks

Part of the book series: Contributions to Management Science ((MANAGEMENT SC.))

Abstract

Trust is an important topic in franchising research. However, research has neglected franchisees’ trust in their fellow franchisees or ‘peers’ within the network (‘peer trust’). Peer trust may facilitate cooperation among franchisees and hence increase unit or network performance. However, it may also negatively affect the franchisor and the network as it may facilitate franchisee coalition formation and collective actions against the franchisor. Managing peer trust within the network is therefore an important issue for franchisors. We contribute to franchising research by developing an integrative theoretical framework on antecedents and consequences of peer trust. We conduct a systematic literature review on the antecedents and consequences of coworker trust within organizations and translate these insights to a franchising context to propose our own integrative framework on antecedents and consequences of franchisees’ peer trust. Our framework distinguishes four types of antecedents of peer trust: franchisee (i.e. trustor) characteristics, peer (i.e. trustee) characteristics, franchisor characteristics and franchise network characteristics. Moreover, we distinguish three types of consequences of peer trust: perceptual/attitudinal outcomes, behavioural outcomes and performance outcomes. We also discuss avenues for future scientific research on peer trust in franchise networks and potential implications for franchisors regarding the management of peer trust.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Some readers may wonder why it is beneficial for franchisees to trust their peers operating in other geographical locations as it may not be useful to share knowledge with them. However, knowledge sharing among franchisees does occur and affects franchisee performance (e.g. Brand et al. 2018). It is out of the scope of this paper to discuss under what conditions franchisees are most likely to share knowledge and in which conditions franchisee peer trust is thus most relevant (see Darr and Kurtzberg (2000) for such insights), but some conditions are the position centrality of the franchisee in the network and the type of knowledge shared. Since franchisees within a franchise network operate under one business format in largely similar types of environments, it is safe to assume that knowledge sharing will take place and can be beneficial to them. In recent years, such knowledge sharing has become even easier due to the rise of digital communication platforms.

  2. 2.

    A more detailed overview of the articles is available upon request at e.p.m.croonen@rug.nl.

  3. 3.

    Social exchange theory is a broad theory and includes socialization theory, fairness heuristic literature, social cognitive theory, network theory and reciprocity theory. These different theories are included in the social exchange theory because these theories are focusing on the emergence and maintenance of social exchange relationships (Blau 1964).

  4. 4.

    Such franchisor ‘divide and conquer strategies’ typically do not seem very effective because franchisees always find a way to interact.

  5. 5.

    The references with an asterisk at the year (e.g. year) are the ones that are included in the systematic review on coworker trust.

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The references with an asterisk at the year (e.g. year) are the ones that are included in the systematic review on coworker trust.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economics & Business, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Evelien P. M. Croonen

  2. Faculty of Economics & Business, Alumni of University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Reinder Hamming

Authors
  1. Evelien P. M. Croonen
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  2. Reinder Hamming
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Evelien P. M. Croonen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Josef Windsperger

  2. Institute of Management of Rennes (IAE), Université de Rennes 1, Rennes, France

    Gérard Cliquet

  3. RSM, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Leiderdorp, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands

    George Hendrikse

  4. Vienna University of Technology, Wien, Austria

    Marijana Srećković

Appendices

Appendix 1 Summary of Research on the Antecedents and Consequences of Coworker Trust

 

Number of studiesa

 

Number of studiesa

 

Number of studiesa

Total sample

21

    

Methodology

 

Theoretical perspective

 

Consequences

 

Quantitative

20

Authentic leadership theory

1

Perceptual/attitudinal outcomes

6

Qualitative

0

Conservation of resource theory

1

Behavioural outcomes

10

Conceptual

1

Organizational behaviour and social psychology

1

Performance outcomes

5

Industries

 

Social exchange theory

11

Trust definition

 

Agricultural

1

Social information processing theory

1

Cook and Wall (1980)

2

Education

5

Theory of psychological engagement

1

Mayer and Davis (1999)

4

Engineering

2

Transformational leadership literature

1

Mayer et al. (1995)

5

Finance

6

Trust literature

5

McAllister (1995)

3

Firefighters

1

Antecedents

 

Other definitions

8

Healthcare

3

Employee characteristics

6

Forms of trust

 

Manufacturing

4

Coworker characteristics

6

Affect-based trust

4

Retail

1

Leadership characteristics

3

Cognition-based trust

0

Not specified

6

Organizational characteristics

4

Affect- and cognition-based trust

2

Countries

  

Not specified

15

Australia

2

  

Measurement of trust

 

Canada

2

  

Matching/dyadic approach

6

China

1

  

Overall

14

Europe

1

  

Not relevant

1

Ireland

1

    

Korea

1

    

Nigeria

1

    

Philippines

1

    

Sweden

1

    

United Kingdom

1

    

United States

9

    
  1. aSome of the studies were focusing on more than one antecedent, consequence, industry, country, etc.

Appendix 2 Integrative Framework ontheAntecedents andConsequences ofCoworker Trust

figure a

Appendix 3 Proposed Integrative Framework on the Antecedents and Consequences of Franchisees’ Peer Trust

figure b

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Croonen, E.P.M., Hamming, R. (2019). They Are Jolly Good Fellows! A Framework for Antecedents and Consequences of Peer Trust in Franchise Networks. In: Windsperger, J., Cliquet, G., Hendrikse, G., Srećković, M. (eds) Design and Management of Interfirm Networks. Contributions to Management Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29245-4_3

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