An invitation to write a paper on international franchising for the Journal of Marketing Channels invoked several choices. A literature review of some description seemed appropriate. However ‘‘state of the art’’ reviews in marketing and management have become quite sophisticated, with a trend toward integrative or systematic reviews (see for example, Miller et al., 2013). Time constraints made that impossible, though the opportunity for another researcher to do this remains as a future research possibility. Instead, it seemed opportune to explore the evolution of the theory of international franchising over the past two decades. Part of the motivation was to examine the ‘‘heritage’’ of the subject and to provide a critical historical perspective as to how the said theory has evolved. Three temporal phases or epochs are considered. A related aim was to redress the often-lingering doubt in many researchers and reviewers minds as to what exactly was the theory of international franchising. At the same
time, there was scope to identify and provide insight into critical issues relevant to practitioners.