ABSTRACT
The ramifications of modern-day industry are both widespread and complex. Few firms are self-contained isolated units; the majority, in one way or another, are economically related to each other and their fortunes closely intertwined. The previous chapter examined one aspect of this interdependence, viz. that associated with the influence exerted by US-affiliated firms on their British competitors. As it is only between those firms within the same industry, and at a similar stage of the production chain, that such a relationship might occur, it is best described as horizontal interdependence. We now turn to examine a further possible way in which US business investment in the UK has affected the pattern of British industrial development and efficiency-namely, through impact which it has made, and is making, on British component and raw material suppliers.
