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According to official sources the Saudi economy, its demographics and customer purchasing power render it an appealing market for the franchising industry. With a population of about 31 million people, there exists a craving for entrepreneurial activities by the younger generation. Franchising as business model, has witnessed tremendous growth in recent times, supposedly generating employment, technology transfer and contributing to revenue, among other effects. Surprisingly, this tempo has not been matched by scholarly interest and investigation into the true contributions and attendant barriers associated with international franchising in the Kingdom. This study intends to fill this void. The study has a national outlook and seeks to explore the appropriate franchise models in the context of an emerging market such as Saudi Arabia in single sector (restaurants).Through primary and secondary methods of data collection, semi-structured interviews were adopted to fulfil the study's aims and objectives. The researcher interviewed 45 people to explore the appropriate franchise models within the context of the Saudi Arabian restaurants sector and to investigate the potential barriers that may impede the success of international franchising in Saudi Arabia. The information yielded by this study will assist the government in taking appropriate policy measures to enhance the performance and benefits of franchising in the economy. Furthermore, the study is significant in terms of theory building regarding the use of different organisational forms specifically the franchise model in a developing economy. Much of the theories about franchising have been derived from the western developed economies particularly the United States. This study, therefore, extends the body of knowledge on franchising in the developing economy, especially in an Islamic country such as Saudi Arabia. The findings of the study revealed that pure franchising is appropriate organisational form to penetrate Saudi Arabia in the restaurant sector. International franchising is a vital vehicle for developing SMEs and encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit among Saudi businessmen. The findings demonstrated that SMES benefited from international franchising in terms of improving their management skills and enhancing innovation among SME owners in the restaurant sector. However, international franchising had limited impact technology transfer and providing jobs in the restaurant sector. Surprisingly, this study identifies that culture and religion are not major barriers to the international franchisor. In contrast, the lack of intellectual property protection and the absence of franchising law appeared to be barriers. The applicability of agency theory in the context of Saudi Arabia has been examined. As a result, payment of royalty fees, franchisee's experience and business development plans, controlling, monitoring and asymmetry of information are the most significant issues that confront the potential franchisor that plans to enter the Saudi market.

The standardisations/adaptation theme is amongst the most debated within International Retailing. Much research has attended to the question of whether an MNC should adapt to local market needs or, if instead, it should emphasise the upholding of global standards to reap efficiencies. Within this debate there is much focus on resonating to market needs but less on the inheritance, history and structure of the MNC and how this affects the ability to adapt or standardise, or indeed to do both by applying the glocalisation theme. Existing research has placed less emphasis on how the MNC might be biased towards either standardising or adapting regardless of market conditions. Central to this debate is the transfer of a retail formula. It is commonly understood that the faithful replication of a retail formula means that each element of the marketing mix is copied ‘as is’ from home to host country. This can at best be a benchmark as no MNC would be able to completely copy a home-derived standard to the host market, however, some retail concepts are generically better able to perform this ideal act than others. They would attempt to standardise as much as possible, adopting a strategy that maximises replication as it seeks not to duplicate resources across borders. The key point in this attempt is whether it does so out of recognising that differences are insignificant, or if it does so because it is unable to see that the differences do matter. Seen from an institutionalisation perspective and, initially looking at the home-derived context only, one recognises the well-defined relationship and interaction between MNC and consumer culture and the position the MNC has obtained in terms of brand strength and success. It is easy to see that context will be different in the host market, but difficult to take this into account when transferring the retail formula out of the home context. More recent literature on embeddedness has addressed some of these linkages and influences which affect the way MNCs transfer their retail concepts, but the literature fails to recognise the full impact. The structural paradox embodies some of the dilemma in this discussion as it addresses the conflict between transferred operational structure and the need to adapt locally to market needs. The glocalisation theme approaches the same dilemma from a competency perspective but does not embrace what stops the MNC from being more adaptive. This research develops a model that aims to combine these perspectives. This model is deployed to three cases, all detailing the transfer of a highly standardised retail concept, hard discounting, which is an ideal platform to explore how home-derived structure is transferred and how it deals with trans-contextual dimensions across borders. The research looks critically and in-depth at how the standards applied impact on the levels of awareness paid towards the need to adapt to trans-contextual dimensions and seeks evidence that demonstrate how attention to the differences become vital to success. At the same time, the cases illustrate that the differences may alter, but the approach taken towards them remain the same. The model defines this approach as a strategic trajectory called ‘MaxRep’, which is developed out of the home context and remains aligned to this particular foreign context when transferred in on the host settings. The benchmarking of this approach against the glocalisation theme leads to the identification of gaps and definition of action to be taken to overcome these barriers to applying effective glocalisation.

The growth in Laos’ economy has been increasingly important in terms of consumption and tourism within Thailand. Currently, however, few studies have attempted to develop a marketing strategy for regional retailers in this emerging nation. This research is concerned with developing an appropriate marketing strategy that balances supply and demand within this regional market. Given that marketing relies heavily on understanding consumer behaviour, the objectives of this study are, first, to develop a cross-border shopper taxonomy in a regional market using benefit segmentation. In order to develop this marketing strategy, the research identified consumer expectations in order to explore how to achieve a competitive advantage that matches consumer needs with the available supplies. This cross-border shopping taxonomy provides a starting point for a holistic evaluation that will assist retailers in making marketing decisions. The study then attempts to understand the current market situations and marketing in practice from the perspective of suppliers. After assessing the correspondence between demand and supply, recommendations on strategic marketing are offered to Thai retailers at the end of the investigation. This study employed both quantitative and qualitative research methods, with 337 questionnaires and seven in-depth interviews. The survey was conducted in Thailand between December 2013 and January 2014. The data were collected from three provinces in the northeast region of Thailand that share a border with Laos: Nongkhai, Mukdahan and Nakorn Phanom. These provinces have high potential in respect to both tourism and retail developments. In addition, the seven interviewees with retailers and policy planners examined the implementation of market segmentation and marketing strategies. The data from the interviews was interpreted and compared with the quantitative data in order to investigate the correspondence between supply and demand. In order to classify cross-border shoppers, the major statistical analyses used were EFA and cluster analysis based on benefits sought. Segments were profiled with travel behaviour, shopping behaviour and demographic variables. ANOVA and MANOVA were employed to test differences between groups. After that, the research explored expectations through the Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) in order to identify priorities for developing a competitive advantage. The results show that cross-border shoppers in the regional markets of Thailand consist of four segments: the Enthusiastic shoppers, the Leisure-tourist shoppers, the Product-focused shoppers and the Practical shoppers. These segments relate to the benefits sought, and correlate with different demographic variables, shopping activities and consumption patterns. Moreover, they have different expectations towards place attributes which are important for designing a marketing strategy that is suitable to each segment. Unfortunately, the interviewees from the supply side provided less marketing response to the cross-border tourist marketing. The implications of the findings are, first, that benefit segmentation is associated with demographic variables, shopping activities and expenditures. In addition, the evidence suggests some misunderstandings on the part of suppliers in respect to cross-border demand. The evaluation of demand and supply contributed recommendations for the design and management of effective marketing strategies for cross-border shoppers in this emerging nation.

This research began with the question: why is the retailer brand market share of Tesco Korea higher than that of local Korean retailers? Of the foreign grocery retailers who have expanded into Korea, Tesco has achieved the most outstanding performance, with the highest retailer brand share in the market. After the withdrawal of Wal-Mart and Carrefour from Korea in 2006, Tesco Korea has been positioned as the successful foreign retailer. Accordingly, how the retail operation of Tesco Korea differs from that of the local Korean retailers attracted the author’s interest, specifically in terms of the development and handling processes of the retailer brand. Rather than examining the customer perceptions of both Tesco Korea and the domestic Korean retailers, the researcher concentrated on identifying the differences between both parties from the point of view of their retailer brand program operations. Based on in-depth interviews with retailers and suppliers, store observations, the author’s own experience in retailer brand development, and company documentation, this research explored the differences between Tesco Korea and domestic Korean retailers in how they develop and handle their own brands. Tesco Korea has taken advantage of retailing know-how, that is, retailer brand development skills created by Tesco UK. With the help of Tesco UK, the retailer brand development process of Tesco Korea is differentiated in a number of areas from that of the local Korean retailers. The flows of retailing know-how from Tesco UK to Tesco Korea has also influenced the whole retailer brand market in Korea, as well as stimulated the local Korean retailers to improve their retailer brand development skills. The entry of retailers with advanced retailer brand development knowledge into markets where retailer brands are less well developed is a catalyst in promoting retailer brand markets, and in intensifying retail competition. Also, the retailer brand development know-how of domestic retailers is enhanced by imitating or benchmarking foreign retailers. This research suggests that retailer brand share is related to the degree to which retailers are proactively involved in the development and handling processes for retailer brand product ranges, as well as to how sophisticated or advanced their knowledge of the retailer brand development process is. Advanced development and handling skills make a considerable contribution to increasing retailer brand share in markets with a lower share or no presence of retailer brands.