ABSTRACT
Implicit in that exercise is the idea that those things that favored chains did not favor independent hotels, or at least did not favor them as much, and therefore account at least partially for the increasing dominance of chains in the hospitality industry. For the efficiency advantages of chains the implication is not problematic. Independent hotels are smaller than chains, and chains have greater likelihood of repeated interactions with customers. For independent hotels the environmental manipulations had no significant effect on the mortality rate. The founding rate of independent hotels decreased with the environmental manipulations. Therefore, this test supports the author's arguments that increases in the supply of professional managers and the sophistication of internal control helped hotel chains but not independent hotels. It is possible that other populations of independent hotels would be affected differently than Niagara Falls hotels by increases in professional managers and decreases in agency cost.
