Benjamin Lawrence

Georgia State University | GSU · Cecil B. Day School of Hospitality Administration

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities have become increasingly prevalent in retail settings. In franchised organizations, franchisors typically design and coordinate these activities, leaving operational execution to franchisees. Meanwhile, franchisors may introduce new corporate-led CSR activities over time. Even though changes to CSR a...

Benjamin Lawrence and Jie J. Zhang argue that an operational perspective on franchise management combines, centralizes, and coordinates the franchise system, allowing it to thrive in the current digital economy.

Companies are increasingly using cause-related marketing campaigns to engage consumers during the purchase process and highlight their own corporate social responsibility initiatives. One growing trend among retailers is the use of charity campaigns, where cashiers or technologies solicit consumers to donate money at checkout. Though these checkout...

Hotel franchising presents a unique network context for investigating inter‐organizational collaboration. Franchisees and franchisors must collaborate closely but face incompatible incentives in allocating financial and human resources to invest in three types of operations: centralized, network‐level operations run by the franchisor; distributed,...

We propose a model that expands the conceptualization of governance in franchising that acknowledges traditionally ignored stakeholders, including debt and equity holders. Though research has examined how equity holders benefit from the organizational form of franchising, it has not examined the specific role that equity or debt holders play in gov...

This study contributes to a deeper understanding of financial returns from the advertising of hospitality services. Specifically, we investigate how different types of franchised hotel outlets, each targeting a different customer segment, moderate the effects of various advertising expenditures on unit-level profitability. Our unique data set allow...

We examine the effects of a franchisee's size, distance from headquarters, and local competition on voluntary compliance with corporate brand‐building initiatives at the outlet level. Specifically, we consider compliance with a corporate social responsibility effort to solicit charitable donations at the time of retail checkout, measuring complianc...

This research empirically validates the Consumer Agency Model which illustrates consumer reactions to the introduction of new Western products to emerging markets. This study represents the first quantitative effort to test the framework in a comparative field study of consumer attitudes towards a franchised business in the two largest emerging mar...

Relations between channel member organizations are not the only relationships of importance in channels research. Significant relationships also exist between channel members and the brands that they represent and sell. Just as in consumer brand relationships, we find that downstream agents co-create the meaning of the brand with which they form re...

Checkout charity is a phenomenon whereby frontline employees (or self-service technologies) solicit charitable donations from customers during the payment process. Despite its growing ubiquity, little is known about this salient aspect of the service experience. The present research examines checkout charity in the context of fast-food restaurants...

In this article, we develop a professional service life cycle model to describe the changes in professional work over time. We explore the drivers of these changes through an in-depth longitudinal case study of one specific professional service – Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) consulting. We focus on understanding the evolutiona...

In this paper, we explore the impact of the organizational form (company-owned versus franchised) and the type of customer (nonbusiness versus business) on online consumer-generated satisfaction ratings in the hotel industry. Our empirical study deals with 6,348 TripAdvisor reviews regarding stays at one of 134 hotels of a plural form chain located...

Utilizing an event study methodology of 185 product recall announcements, this study examines to what extent social media hurts a company’s shareholder value in the event of a product recall. In addition, we explore whether a company’s brand equity and engagement in online chatter potentially mitigate the negative effects of social media surroundin...

In this paper, we examine how consumers’ reactions to the British Petrolium (BP) oil spill and their attitudes about the Gulf of Mexico as a tourism destination differ as a function of the respondents’ geographic location of residence and their past travel behavior. A survey conducted with 540 travelers and tourists, which began three weeks followi...

Using two proprietary data sets, ReviewPro's Global Review Index and Smith Travel Research's performance database, we examine the influence of online review scores on service firm financial performance. We conceptualize online reviews as a measure of a service firm's reputation and demonstrate that higher scores have a positive relationship to a ho...

We explore one prolific type of service triad, the franchise triad, involving three primary stakeholders: the franchisor, the franchisee and the customer. In this triad, franchisees use their affiliation with the franchisor's brand to attract customers to their local outlets. In exchange for the right of assuming the identity of the brand, the fran...

This four-part multi-method investigation into the under-researched yet increasingly prevalent phenomenon of consumer-generated advertising (CGA) confirms a performance advantage over traditional advertising and suggests a rationale for this differential. CGAs benefit from heightened consumer engagement and increased trustworthiness. CGAs also garn...

This naturalistic inquiry probes WOM concerning online consumer-generated advertising (CGA). Through a content analysis of online conversations regarding fourteen CGAs posted to YouTube.com, we uncover that multiple engagement dimensions (i.e., ad, brand, brand community and community-at-large) direct CGA interactions and WOM conversations. We find...

Utilizing theories of identity this article presents findings from a qualitative study regarding the significant role independent franchisee associations play within franchise systems. The data reveal that successful franchisee associations help manage the inherent tension that exists between cooperation and conflict in franchise relationships. A d...

This article examines some of the antecedents, processes, and effects of independent franchisee associations (IndFAs) and the reactions of franchisors to their organization. Specifically, we draw on various literatures to pose propositions relating to the following research questions: (a) Are there fundamental differences between associations whose...