Acquiring entrepreneurial expertise through Franchising: An exploratory study in Oslo, Norway

Abstract

Entrepreneurs are important citizens. By means of creating new businesses, entrepreneurs can create new job positions and pay more taxes to the State, which both contributes to the social well-being. If entrepreneurs are desired because of the amount of wealth and progress they can bring to modern economies, dealing with the problem of how to have more entrepreneurs is difficult. In practice, there are several possibilities open for someone that wants to start an entrepreneurial career. From all these, this work focuses on a particular path: franchising. Franchising is virtually everywhere in the contemporary world. If most of us would think of a McDonald s restaurant, when we hear the term franchise, the truth is that this business model is today present in a large variety of business segments. But is it franchising also a good starting point for someone that wants to be an entrepreneur? Can someone acquire entrepreneurial skills by running a franchised business? These questions are at the core of this research. From analyzing four different franchisees and their operations in Oslo, Norway, this exploratory study shows that some important entrepreneurial skills have been acquired by means of running a franchised operation. Such results could be indicative that stimulating new franchisees, despite the low social status they have today, could be one of the solutions to the problem of how to increase the number of entrepreneurs in the future.