Abstract

Nurul Ashykin Abd Aziz, Mohd Hizam Hanafiah, Hamizah Abd Hamid, Rosmah Mat Isa

The fast movement and development of Malaysian home-grown franchising will cause saturation in the local market. Many franchisors have begun to penetrate the international market, as one of the internationalization strategies. However, little is known about the barriers faced by the franchisors during the process of expansion into the international market. Therefore, this study aims to address this gap by exploring this phenomenon. For methodology approach, a series of three multiple case studies through protocol discussion with Malaysian franchisors were done across education and learning center business. This was done to explore the topic, refine the research questions, and develop the propositions. The findings show several barriers emerging from the qualitative study, which led to the following themes, namely: (i) complexity of other country laws and regulations; (ii) language barrier; (iii) culture differences; and (iv) financial barriers, to help explain the barriers of Malaysian franchisor international expansion. The adopted qualitative methodology provided rich information that will lead the future research. In brief, this study has contributed new knowledge to the existing literature in international franchising knowledge and will benefit the future studies