This paper examines antecedents of ex-ante voluntary information disclosures for standardized contracts in entrepreneurial networks. Entrepreneurs (e.g., franchisors) may make such disclosures to prospective business partners in order to signal profitability of partnering, attract financial and managerial resources and develop their entrepreneurial networks. In practice, only a fraction of franchisors make financial performance representations (FPR), an ex-ante voluntary information disclosure to prospective franchisees. We address gaps in the signaling, voluntary information disclosure, franchising, entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprises (SME) literatures. We draw on signaling theory to develop a theoretical framework and investigate factors that influence a franchisor's disclosure decision. We evaluate hypotheses from our theoretical framework through econometric analyses of multi-sector panel data for the U.S. franchising industry. We estimate a logit model and use lagged independent variables to address our dichotomous independent variable and potential endogeneity respectively. Our results support the view that firms signal their quality through FPRs to attract potential business partners and expand their entrepreneurial networks. Beyond the extant literature, we find that a rigorous partner qualification mechanism is another driver of voluntary information disclosure in franchising. Our findings also provide empirical support for the complementary role played by multiple quality signaling mechanisms used by franchisors and yield public policy implications for franchising.

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The current research aims to explore the possible effects of need for uniqueness's dimensions on fashion luxury brands purchase intentions and to compare Kish and Dubai market in this perspective. The researchers consider three dimensions for uniqueness: creative choice, similarity avoidance and unpopular choice. In addition, the relations between those three dimensions were investigated. Findings indicate that consumers want to express their individuality, and they also want to maintain social norms. This findings support the idea that some consumers prefer expensive and high quality brands that are considered prestigious. This study reveals that there is a relation between creativity choice and unpopular choice among respondents of two markets and the relation between unpopular choice and similarity avoidance, creativity choice and similarity avoidance is only valid among respondents of Iran. The definition of uniqueness for both markets is the same due to order of importance for each constructs in mind of participants in the survey while this definition remain the same between genders and among respondents with different level of education.

This paper examines antecedents of ex-ante voluntary information disclosures for standardized contracts in entrepreneurial networks. Entrepreneurs (e.g., franchisors) may make such disclosures to prospective business partners in order to signal profitability of partnering, attract financial and managerial resources and develop their entrepreneurial networks. In practice, only a fraction of franchisors make financial performance representations (FPR), an ex-ante voluntary information disclosure to prospective franchisees. We address gaps in the signaling, voluntary information disclosure, franchising, entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprises (SME) literatures. We draw on signaling theory to develop a theoretical framework and investigate factors that influence a franchisor's disclosure decision. We evaluate hypotheses from our theoretical framework through econometric analyses of multi-sector panel data for the U.S. franchising industry. We estimate a logit model and use lagged independent variables to address our dichotomous independent variable and potential endogeneity respectively. Our results support the view that firms signal their quality through FPRs to attract potential business partners and expand their entrepreneurial networks. Beyond the extant literature, we find that a rigorous partner qualification mechanism is another driver of voluntary information disclosure in franchising. Our findings also provide empirical support for the complementary role played by multiple quality signaling mechanisms used by franchisors and yield public policy implications for franchising.

The emergence of new technologies, shifting consumer needs and growth in competition have made the expansion of distribution a business imperative for many firms. In this chapter, we review the empirical marketing literature on the performance consequences of distribution expansion and offer an agenda for future research. In doing so, we consider two dimensions of distribution expansionincreases in the intensity of distribution in extant channels and the addition of a new distribution channel. Further, we organize our review of the literature around three approaches towards measuring organizational performancefactual measures of operational performance, perceptual measures of performance and factual, forward-looking measures of firm value. We note some common patterns as well as variations in the distribution expansionfirm performance relationship, across the dimensions of distribution expansion and types of performance measures. These insights form the basis for our agenda for future research on this increasingly important substantive topic.