Furthermore, we hypothesize prior litigation success (FRWIN) to play a critical role in determining a franchisor's conflict management approach. To the extent that the fran- chisor has been able to prevail in prior conflicts, its expec- tation of obtaining a favorable outcome pursuant to conflict escalation is correspondingly higher. We reflect this expec- tation by computing the cumulative number of conflicts in which the fi-anchisor has prevailed, standardized by the total instances of litigation involving the franchisor up to, but not including, the current case. Finally, the dissolution of a rela- tionship (RELDISS), whether at the behest of the franchisor or the franchisee, likely reduces any tendency for forbear- ance (Heide and Miner 1992). We account for this possibil-