Strategic Choice and Financial Structure in Casual Themed Restaurants

Capital structure is one of the most frequent topics in the finance literature. This literature has its origins in studies of the manufacturing industry. Much of the results of this work have been applied indiscriminately to other industries without thorough validation. Only limited studies have considered financial structure in hospitality industry. The service industry is different than manufacturing industry, and even the hospitality industry is not homogeneous. The restaurant industry and lodging industry are quite different from each other. Of interest to this present study is to seek to understand how the patterns of capital structure are shaped within the context of the multi-unit casual themed restaurant industry. Restaurant industry is well known for a high bankruptcy rate. Many multi-unit restaurants exist in the casual themed restaurants strategic group in the Unites States, and many small independent restaurants are also present. The firm's strategic choice and its relationship with financial structure became a topic for my research. Publicly traded casual themed restaurants have been selected in this study. Hypothetically a common capital structure exists among firms within this strategic group. In this study, an investigation can consider the relationship among financial ratios as well as the uniqueness of the financial structure of the casual themed restaurants.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Hospitality and Tourism Management

Department dc:contributor.department

Hospitality and Tourism Management

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Kim, Joung-Eun

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Olsen, Michael D.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Kumar, Raman
• Kwansa, Francis A.

• Financial Ratio
• Working Capital
• Financial Structure
• Firm Value
• Short-term Debt
• Long-term Debt
• Strategy

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-10292008-202447

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/35526