Paper to be presented at the EMNet-Conference on

The high degree of heterogeneity already inherent in our sample of 240 chains is shown in Table 1 below. Particularly we compare companies like McDonald’s, founded in 1955 and with 28.236 outlets in 2001 the largest chain of the sample, with systems like Purified-Water-to-Go, ranked number 190, founded 40 years later in 1994 and representing ... ................
................