From food and fuel to lodging and child care, franchises exert enormous influence over the global business landscape as well as within our personal lives. Yet the franchise phenomenon remains largely undocumented and frequently misunderstood, with very little analysis available on the management challenges - and opportunities - that chains face. Now, with his book Franchise Organizations, Jeffrey Bradach fills the void with a penetrating look at the key factors that shape a franchise business's success.

Using compelling examples from major restaurant chains including KFC, Pizza Hut, Hardee's, and Jack in the Box, Bradach extracts the ingredients that make for a thriving enterprise. He examines how chain organizations meet their primary management challenges, from adding new outlets and maintaining uniform standards to responding to diverse local markets and adapting the system when threats or opportunities arise.

Perhaps most importantly, Bradach's unprecedented research reveals the formidable competitive advantages enjoyed by companies that can blend franchise outlets within their corporate structure to create a distinctive new model - identified here for the first time as the "plural form." The plural form, Bradach argues, provides a uniquely effective way to leverage strengths and mend weaknesses, enhancing an organization's capacity for self-correction and renewal.

Franchise Organizations offers a framework for managing chains built on the processes made possible by the plural form.