irms to prosper. Three, they present a framework for determining a unified sense of direction. Four, they give a brief account of policies and problems in the major functional areas of business. Five, they give detailed case and analysis tools to enhance the reader's ability to identify complex business problems.
Chapter 1 concludes with a list of business failures and their causes of 1987, helping the student to understand the importance of strategic management in the success or failure of a company (p. 4).
In Chapter 2, the authors move to consider the field of action, or the arena in which business executives and businesses operate. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on this field of action, with chapter 2 looking at the environment of the business system. Murdick, Moor and Eckhouse suggest that a business has seven groups of stakeholders, each of which provides some level of legitimacy to the organization: customers, shareholders, general public, suppliers, competitors, governments and special interest groups (p. 5) . It is important that the business ac
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