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Cited by 118Innovation and Socioeconomic DevelopmentFranchising Strategies and PerformanceEntrepreneurship Studies and Influences

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 30 of the 30 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 39 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Building Entrepreneurship in Subsistence Markets: Microfranchising as an Employment Incubator

Open access
Christensen, Lisa Jones, Parsons, Helen, Fairbourne, Jason·2010·Journal of Business Research
DOI 10.1016/j.jbusres.2009.03.020
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Overview

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TL;DR

This exploratory field study compares Fanmilk microfranchisees with comparable standalone small businesses in Accra, Ghana, and finds microfranchisees recover startup costs faster and show a positive association between microfranchising and logged monthly profit. The authors interpret microfranchising as a low-risk employment incubator that creates starter jobs and builds basic business skills in subsistence markets.

Key findings

  • In usable data from 92 Fanmilk microfranchisees and 130 standalone businesses, microfranchisees recovered startup costs in 1.6 months (SD = 2.7) versus 5.09 months (SD = 6.6) for standalone operators, F(1, 204) = 20.12, p < .001.
  • Microfranchisees were younger (M = 27.5, SD = 8 vs. M = 32.3, SD = 10), had lower startup capital (M = 383,544 old Ghana Cedis ≈ USD$26.37 vs. M = 959,125 ≈ USD$65.95), and worked more hours per day (M = 12.5, SD = 2.8 vs. M = 10.8, SD = 2.5).
  • OLS regression on ln(monthly profit) found a positive microfranchise dummy coefficient (B = .13, p < .05); the overall model was significant, F = 3.30, p < .001, R² = .18, p < .001. Startup costs, business age, previous business survival, and less than primary education also related significantly.
  • The paper reports higher savings and lower debt for microfranchisees but says those differences were not statistically significant; education beyond secondary school was lower for microfranchisees (M = .03 vs. .10, F(1, 227) = 3.43, p < .10).

Methods

  • Exploratory grounded-theory field study using Center for Economic Self-Reliance (CESR) interview data from 264 individuals in and around Accra, Ghana, May–July 2007; usable data came from 92 Fanmilk microfranchisees and 130 standalone kiosk/hawker businesses, all male.
  • Interviewers randomly selected Fanmilk vendors at three of five depots between 7 and 10 am, then sought comparable standalone young male kiosk owners and street vendors in the same territories; the questionnaire was modeled after the World Bank Household Survey Household Enterprise module.
  • Analysis used mean-difference tests and OLS regression of ln(monthly profit) on business model type plus controls including startup costs, business age, owner age at start, past business experience, marital status, education, literacy, and hours worked per day.

Limitations

  • Stated: the study does not compare the same individual running a microfranchise and a standalone business and does not randomize business categories, so selection bias is possible; the sample was entirely male, limiting generalization to females or female-run businesses; and it investigates only one low-startup-cost, formal-economy-linked microfranchise with little advancement opportunity, so broader generalization is premature.
  • Stated: selecting standalone businesses in this manner likely excluded more successful kiosks because of their size; the paper also notes it did not address limitations of the microfranchise model itself, including potential exploitative employment practices.
  • Evident/stated: the data are cross-sectional and rely on self-reported sales/profit information that was difficult to collect, with some pre-adjustment data treated as missing and monthly profits log-transformed because they were right-skewed.

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Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.jbusres.2009.03.020

Cites

30 of 30 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

0 Valid · 0 Not valid · 25 Not checked · 61 Own results and interpretations

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Citations

Cites

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Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Grosh, 2000, vol. 3, 350

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Metadata

Authors
Christensen, L. J., Parsons, H., & Fairbourne, J.
Affiliations
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
  • Columbia University (US)
  • Brigham Young University (US)
Corresponding author
  • Christensen, Lisa Jones
  • Parsons, Helen
ORCID
Christensen, Lisa Jones
Venue
Journal of Business Research
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2010-06
Volume
63
Issue
6
Pages
595-601
ISSN
0148-2963 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.jbusres.2009.03.020
OpenAlex
W2047137140
Semantic Scholar
131f4e852a4fb5782e65a76c754cd39f28a1dd80
Cited by
118
References
30
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 2
FWCI
5.32
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Journal of Business Research (publishedVersion)
  • ScholarsArchive (Brigham Young University) (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Business and International Management › Innovation and Socioeconomic Development
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Franchising Strategies and Performance
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management of Technology and Innovation › Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences
Keywords
microfranchising, subsistence markets, job creation, low-income entrepreneurs, barriers to entry, informal economy, Accra, Ghana

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Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.