The Materializing of the Nascent Franchisor’s Identity

• In Event: Organizational Change Communication: Materializing the Immaterial

Abstract

The process of transforming a conventional business into a franchise business requires ‘identity undoing’ (Nicholson & Carroll, 2013). The entrepreneur has to renegotiate their relationship with their business enterprise as they prepare to establish their first franchise operation. This paper presents an examination of the material texts created in this development process and reveals how these artefacts serve to materialize the emerging identity of the franchisor and act as boundary objects (Spee & Jarzabkowski, 2009), stabilizing the interface between franchisor and their first franchisee. The paper’s contribution lies in the way it reveals how texts materialize the new franchisors’ identity and are coupled to the accounts of identity undoing given in their enterprise development narratives.

Nicolson, H., & Carroll, B. (2013). Identity undoing and power relations in leadership development, Human Relations, 66, 1225-1248
Spee, A.P. & Jarzabkowski, P.A. (2009). Strategy tools as boundary objects. Strategic Organization, 7, 223-232.

Author

• Faith Jeremiah, U of Canterbury