Industry Collaboration
Industry Collaboration: Baekchae Kimchijjigae
Since 2021, I have maintained a close research partnership with Baekchae Kimchijjigae, South Korea’s leading casual-dining franchise specializing in kimchi stew (Kimchijjigae), with over 170 franchised locations nationwide. The brand operates on a compact, highly efficient operating model: its concept centers on small-footprint outlets and a streamlined menu comprising a few core kimchi and pork entrees alongside a limited selection of five to six side dishes, maximizing kitchen throughput and operational efficiency. To support this model, the brand’s parent company directly operates its own specialized meat and kimchi processing facilities. This upstream vertical integration not only ensures rigorous quality control and economies of scale, but also buffers decentralized outlets against extreme price volatility in raw agricultural commodities, thereby stabilizing wholesale supply prices. Grounded in a partnership-oriented culture of mutual growth (win-win governance), the brand enforces strict standardization only on core proprietary ingredients—namely fermented kimchi, fresh domestic pork, and its secret seasoning base. For non-mandatory ingredients, operating supplies, and optional menu adoption, franchisees are granted meaningful operational autonomy. As market conditions evolve, Baekchae continuously seeks an operational balance between brand-wide consistency and local customization, making it an ideal empirical laboratory to investigate the tensions between centralized governance and decentralized autonomy.
Through this sustained partnership, I maintain ongoing access to a proprietary store-level database and regularly collect updated operational records while working closely with corporate leadership. This unique data environment combines daily point-of-sale transactions, outlet procurement orders from the brand’s logistics partner, internal managerial records (such as Quality-Service-Cleanliness audits), and customer delivery reviews and satisfaction ratings across operating units. This granular data captures critical frontline operational decisions, including store-level recipe deviations and voluntary compliance with centralized supply chain recommendations, that are typically unobservable in conventional aggregated operational data.
My research program leverages this rich empirical setting across three primary dissertation studies:
Evaluating the Performance Impacts of Operational Autonomy: Utilizing outlet-level procurement and sales records from Baekchae outlets, I examine how granting operational autonomy across supplier-facing, internal, and customer-facing domains impacts store-level performance. The findings offer practical guidance on where franchisors should enforce strict procedural adherence and where local operational discretion creates value.
Designing Behavioral Interventions for Voluntary Sourcing Standardization: In close collaboration with Baekchae’s corporate leadership, I designed a field experiment evaluating how peer-based process feedback and message framing can guide franchisees toward voluntary sourcing standardization. Focusing on non-mandatory ingredient procurement, this initiative tests digital behavioral nudges that enhance network procurement efficiency without straining franchisor-franchisee relational dynamics.
Analyzing Intra-Brand Competition on Digital Platforms: Using high-frequency delivery platform data across overlapping local trade zones, I investigate how intensified intra-brand spatial competition among peer Baekchae outlets drives frontline operational deviations, such as overserving portion sizes. This project sheds light on how digital platform logistics alter frontline compliance and shape localized operating routines.
