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I am not sure about the meaning of a preface, neither about its convenience or needlessness nor about the addressees. However, I suppose that it is expected to tell a (part of the) story behind the story and that it is read by at least two types of readers: The ?rst group consists of friends, colleagues, and all others who have contributed to the opus in any way. Presumably, most of them like being named in the preface, and I think they deserve this attention becausetheyhaveaccompaniedtheroadtotheopusandare,thus,partofthe whole. Thesecondgroupcomprisesthoseacademicfellowswhoareinthesame boot as I am in terms of preparing or having even ?nished their doctoral or habilitation thesis. All others be it that they generally like reading prefaces or expect hints with regard to the reading of this book are likewise welcome to reading this preface. This book contains most parts of my habilitation thesis, which was - cepted by the Faculty of Business and Economics of the RWTH Aachen U- versity, Germany. Unfortunately, to avoid possible copyright violation, I had to omit some paragraphs of the proposed infrastructure framework presented in Chapt. 6. If you are interested in the full version of this speci?c chapter, please contact me (schryen@gmx. net) and I will be happy to provide you an electronic copy. Usually, a thesis represents a (loosely-coupled) collection of published papers (cumulative thesis) or a classic monograph.