Ownership Redirection in Franchised Channels

Since the typical franchise arrangements permit the more powerful franchisors to simultaneously act as suppliers as well as competitors to their franchisees, apprehensions about potential opportunistic behaviors and allegations of antitrust violations are not uncommon. In turn, this unique structuring of franchises with dual distribution has drawn considerable scrutiny from the public policy platform. In particular, the ownership redirection hypothesis— that the powerful franchisors will reacquire the best franchised outlets relegating only the marginal units to franchisees—has received special attention because it verbalizes the worst fears associated with franchising. This paper provides an evaluation of this hypothesis. To do so, we examine (1) the key premises of the hypothesis from the perspectives of a number of related literatures and (2) the available empirical evidence on the hypothesis. Both aspects of the appraisal point to a number of unresolved issues with important public policy implications.