Resumen
Potential franchisees who wish to start up a business need to seek information signals. The aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between performance and risk as signals of the quality of the franchise chains and the decision to choose one of them taken by the potential franchisee who wishes to set up a business for the first time via franchising. The results show that performance and risk operated as recognized signals for choosing a franchise chain among those which were operating in Spain during 2002-2008.