tourism grad student network

It's repeatedly claimed--especially in hospitality--that franchising reduces the risk of failure. That may not be true--see this url and follow-up on "Timothy Bates, a professor at Wayne State University, studied Census Bureau data on 20,000 new enterprises and found that 38 percent of franchises failed within four years of opening their doors, vs. 32 percent of independent start-ups that went belly-up. "

http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/23/pf/francise_fsb_1205/index.htm

If you're looking for a research topic for a class paper or for your thesis / project, this would be a great place to start.