The Competition and Franchise Decision in Fast-Food Industry: Empirical Results in Taiwan

Abstract

速食連鎖業佔台灣餐飲市場總額已超過30%，也變成餐飲消費市場最具影響力之一類，過去已有文獻探討影響速食業獨特銷售主張的因素，像是描述在地方上的競爭力，也有研究提到特許經營是解決速食業總部和餐廳之間資訊不對稱最常見的方法，雖然競爭和特許經營的議題在台灣速食業非常重大，但是大部分的研究都著重在歐洲和美國地區；因此，本研究以探討速食業在台灣的獨特性來填補這個缺口，結果顯示速食店多集中在人口密集的區域而不是較多年輕人的地方，也指出當市場規模夠大或孩童比例高時，摩斯漢堡傾向於搬離麥當勞；而麥當勞往往開在人口較少的地區，但與分店提供的配套服務低度相關。

With shares over 30% in the restaurant market, the fast-food industry has recently become one of the most influential restaurant businesses of Taiwan. The literature has discussed factors that affect the USP (Unique Selling Point) of fast-food companies such as the state of how vigorous the local competition is, furthermore some studies mentioned that a franchise system is the most common solution to the problem of asymmetric information between headquarters and restaurants for the fast-food industry. Although the competition and franchising issues are significant in the Taiwanese fast-food industry, most empirical studies are focused on cases in Europe and America. This study fills that gap by exploring empirically the unique features of this industry in Taiwan. The results show that more fast-food outlets are concentrated in more crowded districts compared to those where the population of the area is mostly the younger society. The analysis also indicate that MOS Burger tends to move away from McDonald`s when the market size is large or when proportion of children in the district is high. Finally, McDonald`s in Taiwan tends to franchise the outlets in districts which are less populated, but have a low correlation with the auxiliary services provided by outlets.