가맹본부 정보의 Signaling 효과에 관한 탐색적 연구: 가맹점 예비 창업자를 중심으로

The purpose of this study is to provide implications for franchisors' growth. The study investigated which attributes franchisees focused on in order to choose franchisors. First, we found that brand familiarity had a positive effect on both brand trust and franchise buying intention. We also found that positive relationships between brand trust and franchise buying intention. Regarding signaling effects on franchisor information, factors including franchise fees, trend, and W-O-M seemed to be positive effects on brand familiarity while factors such as profit rate, franchise fees, W-O-M had positive signaling effects on brand trust. Those who had experience in business failures weighted more on revenue-yielding informations such as franchise fee and royalty than on superficial information such as franchise size. Also, those who wanted to make a decision on business areas(e.g., food, service, retail) rather than business format(e.g., independent store, franchised store) weighted more on the C.E.O.'s personality of the franchising company and business trend. In summary, the study empirically investigated factors for prospecting franchisees to choose franchisors by applying signal theory widely used in financial areas.