Book Review: The Predatory Society: Deception in the American Marketplace

marketing activities as investment processes relates the network approach to corporate strategy. Four cases of Swedish subsidiaries in France are used to operationalize the concepts. Unfortunately, the author fails to provide conclusions or a summary. Forsgren analyzes foreign acquisitions from a theoretical perspective, contrasting the effectiveness of the internalization theory and network theory in explaining this phenomenon. He makes the questionable assumption that readers know and understand his view of the internalization theory, interorganizational theory, and transaction-cost theory, providing little description of the theories. This omission weakens the effectiveness of the chapter for most readers. Melin introduces some interesting questions about industrial markets in an attempt to integrate several theoretical viewpoints. He presents a "field of force" metaphor that combines several views to understand better the processes of development and change in industrial networks or "fields. " This concept supposedly is an improvement of the network approach. Unfortunately, the concept is vague and ambiguous. Part III of the book, emphasizing strategy analysis, addresses the fact that relationships in networks have elements of competition as well as cooperation. Three of the papers emphasize the competitive elements and an equal number address the cooperative elements in strategy. Greater diversity is evident in this section, as works from the U.S.A. , Japan, and Poland are included. Lorange provides a well-organized, effective paper on four types of international cooperative ventures. He posits that the appropriate choice of the type of cooperative venture is contingent upon the strategic importance of the venture and the need for control. Conceptually, there are strong correlations of importance and control in franchises and joint ventures, whereas the correlations are weak in projectbased networks and licensing agreements. Hence, the latter two forms are more subject to dissolution. Suzuki looks at the role of the trading house in mediating relationships between exporters and importers. He borrows from Rogers' (1962) four stages of adoption of innovations to identify differences in types of exporters and importers. The trading house is said to have an undesirable unbalanced role when two parties are at different stages of experience and motivation. Suzuki argues that the trading house should help unbalanced partners become more similar. Fonfara addresses relationships in construction venture markets. The editors can be praised for seeking viewpoints from Eastern Europe; however, the quality of Fonfara's paper is significantly below that of the other papers. Cunningham concludes the book with a comprehensive paper that builds on data from the IMP Project. He focuses on competitive strategy of British firms in European markets, using the interaction model as a framework. Marketing strategy is seen to have four elements: the appropriate market environment in which to operate, the choice and development of a portfolio of customer relationships, the formulation and adaptation of competitive offerings, and the design of the organization structure to facilitate interaction with customers. Cunningham classifies customer relationships in four categories, ranging from "one-off episodes" to "very close. " The majority of British suppliers' relationships with customers are found to be "very close. " Cunningham shows that the investments required to develop and maintain relationships with customers must be compared with the potential benefits. "Divestment" of some customers may be necessary, according to the author. This volume gives international marketing researchers a valuable collection of papers on an interesting research frontier being explored by our European collegues. Perhaps researchers will be stimulated by this fine work to undertake empirical studies investigating networks of suppliers' relationships in areas outside Europe as well.