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Compared with the fierce price competition in 1998, the well‐order price competition is witnessed in Chinese iron and steel industry now and the pricing behaviors of steel firms also follow the certain rules. Based on the methods of collecting the secondary data and interviewing, this paper examines the pricing behaviors of firms to explain the how Chinese steel firms make their pricing decisions and maintain the well‐order competitive relationship among them. The authors found out that (1) most Chinese steel companies adopt a kind of strategic perspective in their pricing decision making, in which understanding of the market trend and the close attention to their competitors are both important; (2) there obviously exists price leader and followers in Chinese iron and steel industry, and the relationship between price leader and followers is relatively stable and the factor behind this phenomenon is the existence of a kind of informal platform of communication among competitors, government and trade associations.

Negotiation is crucial to business alliances, but this process can become more complicated if there are language barriers and differences in cultural values, customs, and lifestyles, such as Western businesses negotiating in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Previous studies have presented models of the Chinese negotiating process but these are primarily from the US. This study examines the negotiating experiences of selected New Zealand investors who have had experiences negotiating either Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) or short‐term sales agreements in the PRC to create two conceptual models. The results provide some interesting insights for doing business in China.

The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively investigate the combined influence of a firm's political connection and diversification on corporate performance, and to explore whether firm's political connection has an impact on the diversification effect, and whether this diversification effect would promote its performance significantly or not.

The research used a regression model to explore the correlation among political connection, diversification strategy, and corporate performance. The research subjects are the private enterprises listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange in China for the period 2002‐2005.

The study found that: first, for those firms without political connections, the relationship between diversification strategy and corporate performance displayed an “inverted U” curve; for firms with political connection, the relationship was a “reverse L”. Second, firms with political connections are more likely to implement a diversification strategy, especially unrelated diversification. Third, when implementing an internationalization strategy, private enterprises with political connections are more likely to expand through unrelated diversification strategy. Fourth, the diversification of the enterprises with political connection are more likely to promote the short‐term accounting performance than those without political connection, but the unrelated diversification of politically connected enterprises would have a negative impact upon its future performance, that is to damage the company's market value.

The paper expands the literature on the relationship between diversification and firm performance. It contributes to the research about the influence of political connection upon corporate performance.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate the corporate market and non‐market behaviors (such as social, legal, and political activities) into the research of competitive interaction.

“Structured content analysis” is used in analyzing the longitudinal data of five real estate enterprises from an industrial journal during the last seven years.

Competitive interactions with market and non‐market contents involve the expanded competitive scope, behaviors, and relationships. New explanations beyond previous literatures are provided to explain the expanded competitive behaviors (especially in resource‐oriented and mixed scope) by analyzing the characteristics of actions and responses.

Firms must effectively focus on the interaction of market and non‐market competitive behaviors. Industrial competitors in the market environment can engage in collaborative or cooperative actions with non‐market issues in order to obtain collective benefits.

This paper expands on previous studyies of competitive interaction by integrating the important non‐market content, especially categorizing it in the Chinese transitional environment with typical evidence.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the prediction of competitive response based on the characteristics of market and non‐market actions comprehensively, and develop a four‐stage decision‐making model of firm's competitive action, which is significant for Chinese practicing managers when formulating and implementing the strategies, and further predicting competitors' strategic choices.

The research adopted the method of structured content analysis and carried out the survey in Chinese home appliance industry, mainly covering the largest firms, including TCL, Hisense, Changhong, Konka, Haier, and Skyworth. The method of multiple regression analysis was employed to test the hypotheses.

The results show that in order to comprehensively forecast competitor's responding behaviors, the firms could not only limit their perspective to market field but also pay attention to non‐market. Additionally, in the process of dynamic interaction, the attacking or responding action is not independent and it is related significantly to another three type decisions, which are market and non‐market, strategic and tactic, and collective and individual. Further, the study asserts that, in market field, tactic activity is more likely to trigger competitor's response than strategic one, while in non‐market, the situation is just the opposite. Meanwhile, the study figured out that individual market attack is easier to trigger individual market and non‐market response, as well as collective market response. While for non‐market action, whatever it is individual or collective, both would be easy to provoke competitor's collective response.

The research findings extend the existing competitive interaction theory to non‐market field. When forecasting competitor's choice of the competitive action, the firms could not only limit their perspective to market field but also pay attention to non‐market, attaching importance to certain situation of competitor's taking such non‐market action as corporate philanthropy, etc. to launch an attack or a response for gaining competitive advantage.

In this special issue, we present a research forum on current issues in cross cultural management in New Zealand, Australia and the Asian‐Pacific Region. Our theme is new horizons in cross cultural management, which is reflected in both topic and approach. Our topics are related to the Asia Pacific Region and its relations with the rest of the world, such as with Africa (South‐Africa), America (US) and Europe (The Netherlands). They are interdisciplinary in nature; our approach focuses on promoting culture‐specific perspectives. Moreover, the research forum intends to push forward knowledge toward new boundaries by means of developing new models and paradigms for comparing cultures and management practices.

This study verifies the influence of the dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and consumer involvement on the identification of the individual with the company and the corporate reputation, moderated by the product category.

A covariance-based structural equation modelling is used to test the model, using a sample of 568 Argentine consumers. A multigroup analysis is employed to assess the moderating effect of the product category.

CSR practices have heterogeneous influence based on their dimension, and this influence is moderated by the product category. Accordingly, environmental practices promote consumer identification with the company, whereas those economically oriented have a direct influence on reputation. In contrast, social practices contribute to reputation if they are connected to the business model.

The study is focussed on Argentina, analysing two product categories (laptops and financial services for final consumers) and using a large, but not strictly random, sample. In order to mainstream the results, it would be relevant to replicate the proposed model in other countries and with other product categories.

It provides information about the perception of consumers regarding the CSR practices from a multi-dimensional perspective, since they have an uneven effect on identification of consumer with the company and corporate reputation due to the moderating effect of the product category. The findings of this study may be relevant for managers of technology and banking service companies.

El presente estudio comprueba la influencia de las dimensiones de las prácticas de responsabilidad social empresarial y de la implicación del consumidor sobre la identificación del individuo con la empresa y sobre la reputación empresarial, moderadas por la categoría de producto.

Se aplican ecuaciones estructurales basadas en covarianzas para contrastar el modelo, empleando una muestra de 568 consumidores argentinos. Se efectúa un análisis multigrupo para analizar el efecto moderador de la categoría de producto.

Las prácticas de RSE tienen influencia heterogénea según su dimensión, moderada la influencia por la categoría de producto. Así, las prácticas ambientales promueven la identificación del consumidor con la empresa mientras que aquéllas con orientación económica influyen directamente sobre la reputación. Por el contrario, las prácticas sociales contribuyen a la reputación si están vinculadas al modelo de negocio.

El estudio se ha focalizado en Argentina, analizando dos categorías de producto (computadoras portátiles y servicios financieros para consumidor final) y usando una muestra elevada pero no estrictamente aleatoria. Para generalizar los resultados sería relevante replicar el modelo planteado en otros países y otras categorías de producto.

Proporciona información sobre la percepción de los consumidores respecto de las prácticas de RSE desde una perspectiva multidimensional, pues éstas tienen efecto dispar sobre la identificación del consumidor con la empresa y la reputación empresarial dado el efecto moderador de la categoría de producto. Los hallazgos de este estudio pueden ser relevantes para gerentes de empresas de tecnología y de servicios bancarios.