Internationalization and the Dutch fashion industry: an investigation of inward and outward internationalization

The overall topic of this book is internationalization. It is hard to deny that organizations are increasingly internationalizing in order to remain competitive, to access growth markets and resources and to reduce operating costs. Understanding international business has become imperative for academic researchers, business managers and policy makers but also for students as they prepare themselves to enter an increasingly complex business environment. The subject of International Business can be viewed from many angles and general interest in the subject, as educators, researchers and business professionals, has grown exponentially. A simple Google Scholar search on the keywords “international business” delivers nearly 1 million articles and, as a teacher, I can choose from 258 “international business” textbooks. It is, therefore, necessary in this introductory chapter to provide some background on the subject and to adequately describe the scope and context of the international business that we focused on in the series of studies that follows.