Abstract
To the best of our knowledge, the research reported here represents the first attempt to analyze how beliefs and attitudes toward one's own abilities influence business form choice. We present a set of five hypotheses associated with an individual's perception of their own business acumen, business purchase determination, self-efficacy, self-regulatory focus and attitude toward customers that serve to predict an individual's choice of either franchising or independent business ownership. We also examine how these pre-entry orientations may or may not predict survival or failure across the two business models. The analysis of data gathered from 1186 Australian business operators reveals that the variables of interest do, in fact, predict business model choice but results also suggest that other factors are more predictive of survival or failure. We conclude that the key to marketing channel efficacy resides within the complementarity, or “fit”, between human form and structural form.