Alan Felstead, The Corporate Paradox: Power and control in the business franchise, London, Routledge, 1993, pp 273, £35 Stg Hb £14.99 Stg Pb. The Corporate Paradox is the first in-depth study of contemporary business franchises and, as such, provides a revealing account of what goes on behind the facades of some well known high street shops. It is quite likely that most readers will have visited at least one of the following businesses at some time or other: Avis Rent-A-Car, Clark’s Shoes, McDonalds, Prontaprint, The Body Shop, and Tie-Rack. You may, perhaps, have been attracted to it because of the popular brand name and you may have assumed that the outlet which you visited was part of a large multi-national chain of stores. But, as Felstead informs us at the beginning of his study, you probably did not know that these outlets were in fact locally owned businesses with a separate legal identity from that of the corporation whose name they traded under. This, as the author points out, is somewhat paradoxical because: ‘On the one hand, a franchised business looks and acts like a branch of a much larger corporation, while on the other hand, it retains a distinct legal persona’ (p 1). This paradox is the prelude to the central question addressed in the book: who really controls these businesses?