This study was conducted to investigate the effects of the entrepreneurship and market orientation of franchisers on the boundary-spanning behavior of franchisees in food-service companies in the Yeongnam region. This study also investigated the relationship between the entrepreneurship and market orientation of franchisers and sought to identify the effect of the boundary-spanning behavior of franchisees on their managerial performance. Based on literature reviews, 4 hypotheses were tested. The subjects responding in this study were owners or managers of franchise restaurants in Youngnam province. A total of 605 questionnaires were analyzed using the factor analysis, a reliability test, and structural equation modeling analysis. The results revealed that first, the entrepreneurship and market orientation of franchisers were positively related to the boundary-spanning behaviors of franchisees, and secondly, the entrepreneurship of franchisers was positively related to their market orientation. Finally, the boundary-spanning behavior of franchisees was positively related to their managerial performance. Therefore, food-service franchisers in Youngnam should have the entrepreneurship and market orientation to lead franchisees to have positive boundary-spanning behaviors and good performance.

This paper reviewed the relationship between boundary spanning behaviors and service quality, and the moderating effect of gender. Based on the responses from 204 employees in outdoor-food franchising system, hierarchical regression analysis showed that service delivery has positive relationships with all service quality factors, and external representation and internal influence have partly positive relationship with them. Gender appeared to have partly moderating effect on the relationship between only internal influence and service quality.