The pricing behavior of firms in the Chinese iron and steel industry

Abstract

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.

Citation

Tian, Z., He, Y., Zhao, C. and Yi, G. (2005), "The pricing behavior of firms in the Chinese iron and steel industry", Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 67-88. https://doi.org/10.1108/13555850510672395