Ten publications (1 book, 9 articles) are presented within the subject area of Retail Franchising. The aim is to demonstrate how this collection of work contributes individually and collectively to a better understanding Retail Franchising as part of Vertical Marketing Systems (VMS) in general, and its use as a growth strategy to expand the business successfully in international markets with differing legal, political, cultural/social, economic development and governance perspectives, as well as its impact on host country development. The significant growth of franchising in a number of developed/developing economies within the last thirty years has led to this business format franchising/retail franchising experiencing a rising importance in a number of academic debates and research. There has been a significant amount of research done on various aspects of franchising in general and international franchising in particular, from 1960s through to 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium. However, in terms of retail franchising and its fit within VMS and specifically its use as a growth strategy internationally with varying political, legal, sOcial/cultural environments, governance issues and market dynamics, there are still only a small number of contributions of any substance and significance. The author's work sits within a body of literature that spans a number of disCiplines. Conceptually franchising can be seen, for example, as a component of the wider areas of VMS, Growth and (specifically) the Internationalization of the Firm and PrincipalAgency theory. VMS had, in the author's opinion, the greater impact on his work and in setting the context for the same, this literature is discussed first. This collection of work brings together theoretical and practical aspects of business format franchising and retail franchising and uses them as an international growth strategy successfully by creating the right balance of 'standardisation' and 'adaptations' in managerial and marketing/operational dimensions without overall dilution of the core ethics of the concept/brand, against varied political, legal, social/cultural and economic development aspects as well as governance issues using a selection of regions/countries around the world. This collection of work demonstrates that the international markets for franchising are not as homogenous as it is assumed by many franchise companies, as well as researchers. There are, as the author's work highlights, a series of often highly distinctive and individualistic national markets with, in some cases, certain areas/aspects of convergence between the markets. From a theoretical point of view, they may even alter the balance between the economics of different growth strategies. From a practical perspective, one of the apparently attractive aspects of franchising, of being able to grow successfully internationally by rolling out exactly the same format/formula/concept, is not as straightforward as earlier work might make it appear.