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This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/eb014521. When citing the article, please cite: Lynn E. Gill, Robert P. Allerheiligen, (1981), “Co-operation in Channels of Distribution: Physical Distribution Leads the Way”, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Materials Management, Vol. 11 Iss: 8, pp. 56 - 70.

Historically goods and services have been distributed through networks in which loosely aligned firms have bargained at arm's length, negotiated aggressively over price and other conditions of sale, and otherwise behaved autonomously. However, planned vertical marketing systems are rapidly displacing these conventional marketing channels as the dominant mode of distribution in the American economy. These vertical marketing systems tend to be professionally managed, pre‐planned, rationalised, and capital intensive. According to McCammon, over 60 per cent of total retail sales are through firms affiliated with vertical marketing systems.

This paper aims to explore cross-cultural differences in perceived ethicality of negotiation strategies among China, Taiwan and Canada by examining five categories of strategies often used in business negotiations.

This paper uses a survey method to investigate a group of over 600 business students’ opinions on the ethicality of a variety of negotiation strategies often used during the bargaining process.

The results show that the Chinese both from the mainland and from Taiwan consider it more appropriate to use ethically questionable negotiation strategies than Canadians. In addition, significant gender differences are found for Canadians, in that male Canadians are more likely to consider it appropriate to use ethically questionable strategies in all five categories than females, while no gender differences are found for mainland Chinese in all but one category, with a moderate level of gender differences found for the Taiwanese.

The findings of this paper help explain why there are different understandings toward what is ethical and what is not in negotiations, which can be used to better equip practitioners to accurately label and understand negotiation strategies they may otherwise deem unethical. A better understanding of cross-cultural differences in business ethics can also help practitioners avoid the feelings of anger and mistrust toward their opponents and thus avoid using tactics that might incite more anger and hatred from the other party.

This paper contributes to the cross-cultural literature on ethical attitudes and behaviors and helps us better understand cross-cultural differences in business ethics in a negotiation context. This paper narrows this gap by empirically validating some of the Western findings in China and Taiwan. The results also provide support for a set of commonly accepted strategies to be used in business negotiation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine current practices of logistics cost management (LCM) in Mainland China and identify factors impacting on the effectiveness of LCM.

The questionnaire‐based survey is conducted in Mainland China. To analyze the status quo of LCM in Mainland China, the paper takes two nonparametric tests, Mann‐Whitney U‐test and Kruskal‐Wallis one‐way analysis of variance to compare the difference between firms with and without attaching importance to LCM.

The difficulties of LCM in China is as follows: first, there is a lack of effective cost measurement tools and analyses as well as reporting systems, especially in terms of distributors. Second, it is very critical to organize intra‐organizational cross‐functional teams and inter‐organizational collaboration based on business processes to promote information integrating instead of blindly investing on information technology application. Third, professional logistics managers are in short supply, even among logistics service providers.

First, although the sample covers some industries, the generalization of the conclusion is still limited due to sample size. In future research, more industries should be covered to test the hypotheses proposed. Second, this paper just analyzes the status quo of Chinese company LCM. Future studies are encouraged to deeply explore internal and external operational management factors impacting on LCM.

This paper is a very insightful source of information about LCM in Mainland China for logistics managers and policy makers. This paper provides logistics managers with insight so as to improve their performance. There are also suggestions for government and educational institutions to provide more resources to develop and offer more logistics courses and training programs to fulfill the needs of the logistics industry. The paper sets up a basis for research on LCM in China.

Despite the importance of LCM in Mainland China, the extant literatures scarcely have a sound analysis. Theoretically, this paper extends theories of LCM in China and identifies main issues concerning LCM. This paper is an exploratory study to figure out an effective LCM approach in China.