and care put into the revisions. We hope you agree that this eighth edition continues the tradition and remains the “world-class” text for the study of international management. We would like to acknowledge those who have helped to make this book a reality. We will never forget the legacy of international management education in general and for this text in particular provided by our departed colleague Richard M. Hodgetts. Special thanks also go to our growing number of colleagues throughout the world
in the supply chain able to control/verify critical aspects in all relevant stages of the product’s life cycle to a degree that is not only acceptable to themselves but also to the external stakeholders. To understand how this may play out in reality, it is necessary to understand the interorganisational structure of companies involved in the different stages of the production phase of the product chain and how these companies interact. To do this we need to introduce another fundamental concept