While franchising promotes economic and social welfare objectives, Elizabeth Crawford Spencer argues that monitoring and regulation are needed to address potential areas of abuse of the form that can result in costly market inefficiencies. This unique study surveys franchise-specific legislation worldwide as a starting point for a thorough examination and analysis of the role of both private and public regulation of the sector in the context of current theoretical approaches to regulating contractual relationships. The book concludes that properly calibrated regulation can minimize inefficient allocations of power and risk and lead to maximum economic and social benefits by promoting the development of small business, enabling the growth of entrepreneurial skills, and facilitating economic well-being and independence among SMEs. This comparative survey will prove to be invaluable for academics in franchising marketing, management, law and practice. The Regulation of Franchising in the New Global Economy will also appeal to franchise law practitioners, consultants, policymakers and those wishing to influence policy on all sides of the debate in the many jurisdictions that are engaging in the processes of adopting, or reviewing, franchise regulation.

Franchising is one of the major engines of business expansion and job creation globally. The Handbook of Research on Franchising offers new insights into entrepreneurial behavior, organizational forms, regulation, internationalization, and other contemporary issues relating to this dynamic business strategy. The Handbook challenges both practitioners and scholars to give attention to the conclusions of scholarly research on this business model. Practitioners can benefit from the results of high quality scientific research, and scholars can find exciting opportunities for contributing to the body of knowledge of a subject that has not received sufficient attention in educational institutions.

The current book on Nework Governance contributes to the literature by offering new perspectives on network goals and performance, inter-organizational learning and trust in alliances, corporate governance issues in cooperatives, governance of cross-border retail networks, contract design and governance innovations in cooperatives and fanchising.

Franchising is an increasingly important global business model, but how well protected are franchisees –the people who operate and make any franchise system really work? In this book, the author explores the many different roles that franchisees play in modern business, and their importance to the success of every franchise arrangement. As well as providing a comprehensive overview and analysis of the legal context of modern franchising relationships, and the different measures taken to deal with franchisee concerns, the author examines the “weak links” in contemporary franchising – the areas where franchisees are rarely appropriately protected. Despite all the rhetoric, franchisees remain awkwardly accommodated within the law, and they are in need of attention through improved consumer protection, corporate governance, and business insolvency/bankruptcy laws. Franchisees As Consumers examines why franchisees remain more vulnerable under the law than employees and suppliers, and what can be done about it.

This edited volume provides critical reflections on the interplay between politics and law in an increasingly transnationalized global political economy. It focuses specifically on the emergence and operation of new forms of governance that are developing through a variety of transnational contractual practices, institutions, and laws in multiple sectors and areas of economic activity. Interdisciplinary in nature, the volume includes contributions from law, political science, sociology, and international politics, with the focus on the political foundations of transnational contract being both original and path-breaking. Placing power at the center of the analysis, the volume reveals the heterogeneous landscape of contemporary law-making and the different kinds of politics giving rise to this form of global ordering. As the contributors note, this new form of governance requires a different type of political theory and legal theory, with the volume advancing understanding of the analytical, theoretical and normative dimensions of private transnational governance by contract, making a valuable contribution to new theory in law and politics. It will be of great interest to students and academics in law, political science, international relations, international political economy and sociology, as well as international commercial arbitration lawyers, trade and investment lawyers, and legal firms.

Recent decades have seen substantial growth in the range of assistance programmes for SMEs and entrepreneurs across the world. Once regarded as peripheral to the economy and public policy, the role of small firms and of entrepreneurship is now recognized as of key importance in the economic growth and development strategies of many nations. The range of interventions and support focused on promoting SMEs and entrepreneurship is substantial and expanding, so Government, SMEs and Entrepreneurship Development asks ’what are some of the main policy instruments being used, and how effective are they?’ It considers policies in different countries, examines key interventions and tools used to promote entrepreneurship and SME development and concludes with contributions on how to best evaluate their effectiveness. The contributor chapters by academics and practitioners from businesses, enterprise development agencies and governments, are empirical or evidence-based and use both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Drawing on experience from a wide range of both developed and emerging countries and economies, the contributions focus on the broad strategies that different governments and communities have adopted to foster entrepreneurship and SMEs; the policy tools and instruments that can be used to promote small business and entrepreneurship; and on the outcomes of policy instruments and the methods used to evaluate interventions. Their findings will help researchers, policy-makers, economic development officers, civil servants, elected officials, and business associations to better understand the issues in this important field.

The emergence of a decentralized, fragmented, and low-cost Internet opened up possibilities for persons with disabilities to lead an independent and inclusive life, which had been denied to them in the physical world. The virtual world, unlike the physical world, was presumed to be devoid of physical, social, and attitudinal barriers that have historically led to the marginalization and exclusion of persons with disabilities. Yet with advancement in technology, concerns of persons with disabilities to access the Internet were relegated to the background. Since the Internet is largely dominated by corporations, this digital divide cannot be bridged without questioning their role; and corporations, as gatekeepers of the virtual world, need to proactively engage in dismantling barriers to accessing the Internet. Corporations and Disability Rights engages with the contemporary discourse on the nature of the right to access the Internet and contextualizes this right within the framework of emerging disability rights jurisprudence. This book explores the interplay between human rights of persons with disabilities and corporate obligation in a technologically advanced society. It argues that under disability rights jurisprudence, the right to access the Internet is a human right and not merely an enabling right. It bridges the existing normative and regulatory gaps for the effective realization of the right to access the Internet.