COMPARATIVE EVIDENCE ABOUT KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER BETWEEN BRAZILIAN AND FOREIGN FRANCHISE COMPANIES

Abstract

The objective of this study is to compare the process of transferring knowledge in franchising between Brazilian and international companies operating in Brazil. Franchising has shown an important phenomenon in many countries, with considerable evidence of growing globally. It is a new type of business organization as an object of academic research field offering great reviews, but also limitations as references and studies of depth of field. The traditional literature in management emphasis on franchising, in large part to its importance as a way to circumvent resource constraints, as their characteristics and definition of business practices among its different parts. The transfer of knowledge in franchising is still a gap especially among companies in different countries. In addition, we adopted a methodology that this study followed a qualitative research with in-depth interviews of franchisees. The results show that Brazilian firms oriented transfer of knowledge in franchising for more lawsuits based on tacit knowledge, thus using more informal and less number of transfer mechanisms in these processes. International companies operating in Brazil for franchising rely on formal processes with periodic meetings, training and technological resources, and therefore have a greater control over the process of transferring knowledge to the franchised units. Thus, this study seeks to help we better understand franchising, development processes and their expansion in emerging markets like Brazil.