AN ANALYSIS ABOUT INTERNATIONALIZATION OF BRAZILIAN FRANCHISING COMPANIES

Abstract

The franchising industry in Brazil had a great development after the stabilization of the economy and it is put in relief for being composed, in its majority, by national companies. It can be noticed, nowadays, an increasing movement of internationalization of these companies. However, this phenomenon is still scarcely studied by national literature. To fill part of this gap, this article aimed to analyze general aspects of the internationalization of brazilian franchising companies. Thus, its objectives were: to identify the profile of the internationalization of brazilian franchising companies, which includes, amongst other aspects, the number of stores and the period of operation abroad, countries of destination and entrance methods; and to analyze organizational characteristics associated to the internationalization. As research method, it was carried out a survey, being the final sample constituted by 61 companies. The data were analyzed by techniques of descriptive and multivariate statistics, which included discriminant analysis and logistic regression. It was observed that, in general, the number of stores abroad is small and the period of international operations is reduced. Portugal and Mexico are the main destinations of the companies, which, in general, choose the master franchising as method of operation abroad. The results also demonstrated that the amount of stores in Brazil, the period of operation within franchising systems and the geographic dispersion in domestic market are variables associated to the internationalization, being significant in differentiating the groups of companies relative to the operation abroad.