Fast food franchise
How a milkshake-mixer salesman devised a business model that turned a burger restaurant into a global giant.
There are more than 36,000 McDonald's restaurants around the world - but if the McDonald brothers had had their way, that might never have happened. Tim Harford tells the story of how milkshake-mixer salesman Ray Kroc turned their burger business into a global giant, and explains the principles that made his franchising model such a success.
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Sources
Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonalds. 1987. Ray Kroc with Robert Anderson. Contemporary Books. Ch 1.Β McDonalds: Behind the Arches. 1987. John F Love. Transworld. P 23 & P 176.
McDonalds: Behind the Arches. 1987. John F Love. Transworld. P 3, P 16-19, P 22-26, P 53 & P 144-149.
The Economics of Franchising. 2005. Roger D. Blair, Francine Lafontaine. Cambridge University Press.
Ownership, Agency, and Wages: An Examination of Franchising in the Fast Food Industry. Alan B Kreuger. Quarterly Journal of Economics 106(1):75-101. February 1991.
Double-Sided Moral Hazard and the Nature of Share Contracts. Sugato Bhattacharyya and Francine Lafontaine. The RAND Journal of Economics, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 761-781.
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