PurposeThe increasing “globalisation” and complexity of construction design implies that the project team may involve subcontractors in the construction supply chain from widely distributed geographic areas. Thus communication is a vital process for the design. The aim of the present work is to investigate how construction design under supply chain partnering can be improved through a study of communication issues and problems.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire survey is initially conducted to investigate communication issues and problems in construction design. Based on the survey results, a case study is carried out to gain further insights into these issues and problems, exploring how the procurement like supply chain partnering influences the multi‐team communications in construction design.FindingsThe paper finds that partnering can eliminate many communication barriers and has a positive impact on social collaboration in the design process. It could have a negative impact on the team communications if proper procedures have not been put in place. In addition, co‐location can increase the degree of interaction, communication and technical collaboration in the partnership.Originality/valueThis paper may help construction project practitioners to focus their attention on the necessary respects of multi‐team communications between supply chain partners in construction design, leading to high cooperation and ultimately improving the quality of the design outcomes.

PurposeThis research is designed to explore Chinese customers' wine purchasing behaviours and to investigate the effect of country‐of‐origin (COO) information on their wine evaluations.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from the shopping malls both in Shanghai and Hangzhou, China, using the systematic sampling method. A total 148 usable questionnaires were returned and analysed by SPSS.FindingsThe results confirmed that Chinese customers consider COO as the most important factor in their wine evaluation when a single‐cue approach is applied. When a multi‐cue approach is used however the results showed that there was no significant difference in the importance in COO and price as indicators. This research also revealed some salient characteristics of Chinese consumers buying behaviour associated with Chinese culture. When the Chinese are evaluating wine for gift giving and consuming wine in public, they tend to attach more importance to COO than to other variables and are more likely to purchase foreign or imported wine instead of domestic brands.Research limitations/implicationsOnly respondents from Shanghai and Hangzhou were chosen, limiting the representativeness of the sample. Future research will be benefited from increased sample size from different geographical regions and by examining the relationship between the consumer demographic characteristics and the COO effects.Originality/valueThe results from this study stand in contrast to previous studies relating to the role of COO in product evaluation. It illustrates the importance of culture in relation to COO.

Purpose -This paper aims to explore the effect of e-marketplace on the supply chain's performance under the markdown policy. Profit and risk analyses are both conducted and channel coordination issues are examined. Design/methodology/approach -The paper presents a markdown policy supply chain analytical model with e-marketplace and examines the optimal markdown policy. The mean-variance theory is employed to study both the risk and profit residing in the supply chain. Extensive numerical analysis is conducted. The paper investigates both the cases when e-marketplace selling price is exogenous and endogenous. Findings -The markdown policy can coordinate the supply chain as long as the parameters satisfy certain analytical conditions. The expected profit and risk in the supply chain are both increased when e-marketplace is introduced. The retailer shares a larger portion of the increased expected profit but at the same time bears a higher risk.Research limitations/implications -In this study, similar to the mainstream literature in the related area, the supply chain consists of one manufacturer and one retailer, and there is one single selling season with one product. Despite being able to generate interesting analytical results, this model fails to capture the more complicated real world practices. Practical implications -The existence of e-marketplace can be beneficial to the whole supply chain in terms of expected profit improvement. When the expected profit increase brought about by e-marketplace is large enough to compensate for both the operational cost of e-marketplace and the increase of the risk, the retailer could consider introducing e-marketplace to dispose of the excess inventory. Originality/value -This paper is an original work. It is based on the reviewed literature and the model with markdown policy is new. This could be a reference for further research into optimal performance in the supply chain with e-marketplace.

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