The Social Organization of the Franchise: A Case of `Controlled Self-Employment'

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Abstract
Over the last decade official surveys have recorded a significant leap in the number of people registered as self-employed. However, relatively little research has focused on the relationships under which the self-employed actually work. Those which do, have chosen the manufacturing sector, and the classic examples of homeworking and subcontracting, as their primary focus. This paper helps to redress this bias by examining the conditions of work of those individuals who operate as franchisees under the self-employed label and who are predominantly located in the service sector. The paper analyses the contractual relationship between franchisor and franchisee with three questions in mind: where does the operational control of the business reside; what are the financial linkages between franchisor and franchisee; and who holds the ownership title to, and control of, the tangible and intangible business assets. On each, franchisees are found to occupy an ambiguous position, thereby giving rise to the notion of their being part of the `controlled self-employed'.