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The purpose of this study is to offer service practitioners evidence about: the factors that financial institutions consider in order to evaluate the impact on the entire company of an eventual decision to eliminate a financial service from the range; the degree of influence that these factors exert on management; and the contextual conditions that shape the above degree of influence.

The research is based on 20 in‐depth interviews with higher echelon managers from an equal number of UK financial institutions and a mail survey of 112 specific elimination case histories from an equal number of UK banks, building societies and insurance companies.

The impact of a financial service's eventual elimination on the relationships of the company with its customers is rated as the most influential evaluation factor. Other influential evaluation factors are the impact on the public image of the financial institution and the impact on the sales and the profitability of other financial services in the range. However, the degree of influence is largely situation specific.

The implications are twofold. First, in managers' attempts to project the impact of a financial service's eventual elimination from the range they may avoid imitating competitors. Second, managers may avoid being mechanistic in evaluating the impact of eventual elimination decisions.

This paper represents the first empirical attempt to shed light on the way in which service companies evaluate the impact of a service's elimination from the range.

This paper aims to identify the problem situations leading financial firms to kick off the elimination decision‐making process for financial products in their line, measure the importance of problem situations, and assess the effects of a set of contextual variables on the above importance.

The study took place in the UK; data were collected through 20 in‐depth interviews with managers of financial firms and a mail survey to a stratified random sample of financial firms, which yielded 112 returns.

Eight problem situations are identified and their importance is measured. The results indicate that the importance of problem situations is highly situation‐specific: it varies in relation to the degree of a financial firm's market orientation, the intensity of competition, the austerity of the regulatory environment, and the rhythm of technological change.

From a theoretical standpoint, future research on the investigation of the importance of decision variables pertaining to line pruning must always take into consideration the internal and the external context of the firm. From a practical standpoint, this study has important policy implications, since it provides managers with a first picture of the effects of selected contextual forces on the importance of the problem situations triggering line pruning in services settings. The limitations of the study provide useful avenues for future investigation.

This study represents the first attempt to measure the importance of different problem situations triggering line pruning in financial services and relate that importance to a set of contextual variables. As such, it makes a clear theoretical contribution.

Drawing upon theory on organizational decision speed, this study aims to take a first step toward an understanding of the temporal aspect of the elimination decision‐making process in financial services (i.e. the process of withdrawing an item from the product line) and in particular of the organizational, product‐specific and environmental determinants of the speed of the elimination decision‐reaching and the elimination implementation processes.

Data were collected through a mail survey to a stratified random sample of 500 UK financial institutions, yielding 167 returns.

The paper finds first, the speed of elimination decision‐reaching is shaped by product line length, market orientation, formalization, technological change, and the austerity of the regulatory context. Second, the speed of the elimination implementation process is influenced by whether the item that is considered for elimination is a typical bank, insurance, or mortgage product, by its delivery method, and by whether it is for the retail or the corporate market.

By responding to an array of issues highlighted as important research directions by previous studies on organizational decision‐speed, this study has useful theoretical implications. The findings also provide practitioners with a first picture of how the pace of their line rationalization plans may be impeded or accelerated by a set of contextual factors.

The study represents the first attempt to examine the service elimination process (i.e. a marketing decision area) in relation to decision speed (i.e. a central aspect of organizational decision making). As such, it makes a clear inter‐disciplinary contribution.

This paper aims to consider decision speed’s role in the largely neglected decision area of product elimination.

Drawing on an inter-disciplinary theoretical background (e.g. organisational, decision speed and product elimination theories), the authors develop and test a framework for decision speed’s effects on the market and financial outcomes of a stratified random sample of 175 consumer product eliminations.

In contrast to decision speed research that hypothesised (and often failed to confirm) linearity, results show inverted ∪-shaped decision speed-to-decision outcomes relationships, with curvatures moderated by product importance, environmental complexity and turbulence.

Findings are suggestive of several implications for the above theories (e.g. contribution to the dialogue about performance-enhancing value of rational vs incremental decision-making; evidence that excessive decision speed may become too much of a good thing). Certain design limitations (e.g. sampling consumer goods’ manufacturers only) point at avenues for future inquiry into the product elimination decision speed-to-outcomes link.

Managerially, the findings suggest that product eliminations’ optimal market and financial outcomes depend on a mix of speed and search in decision-making and that this mix requires adjustments to different levels of product importance, interdependencies with other decision areas of the firm and environmental turbulence.

The paper makes a twofold contribution. It enriches decision speed research, by empirically addressing speed’s outcomes in relation to a decision area that is not necessarily strategic and represents the first explicit empirical investigation into outcomes of decision speed in product line pruning decision-making.

Despite the importance of the ability of service firms to rationalise their service ranges in today's competitive environment, the area of service elimination decision‐making is one of the least researched in the literature on services marketing. Responding to this knowledge gap, this paper reports part of the findings of a broader exploratory investigation into the service elimination process in the British financial services sector. In detail, the paper presents qualitative and quantitative empirical evidence on the way in which British financial institutions audit their service range in order to identify financial services as candidates for elimination. The evidence showed that the British financial institutions studied follow a periodically conducted service range auditing process, which is often documented and computer‐aided. The audit is operationalised by a set of financial and non‐financial audit criteria (performance dimensions). The evidence also showed that the service range auditing process is not static but dynamic. As such, the relative importance of the audit criteria used varies in relation to service‐specific, organisational and environmental variables, such as type of financial service, business strategy pursued overall, degree of market orientation, intensity of competition, intensity of legislation and rhythm of technological change.

Reports on part of the findings of a broader exploratory investigation into the service elimination decision making behaviour in the UK financial services sector. The issues tackled in this paper are: the degree of planning for the service elimination decision‐making process; the formality of service elimination procedures; the place of service elimination within the broader range of service range management activities; and the relative importance of the process of service elimination compared to the process of new service development (NSD). The empirical evidence from 20 in‐depth interviews with marketing directors and managers suggests that UK financial institutions: do not always follow a planned service elimination decision‐making process; have largely informal service elimination procedures; tend to see service elimination activities as ad hoc rather than as a part of service range management activities; and favour the process of NSD considerably more than the process of service elimination. Concludes by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of the findings and by suggesting future research directions.

Store brands represent an important part of the consumer goods market and a prominent research area. The purpose of this paper is to address a well‐defined problem of store brand research and is concerned with individual characteristics that explain heterogeneous preferences for store brands. Understanding how preferences vary with consumer factors is a key element in developing successful marketing strategies.

A survey is designed and implemented to a large random sample of consumers, using computer‐assisted telephone interviewing.

Specific consumer characteristics are associated with interpersonal differences in store brand demand. Store brand preferences derive from a broader evaluation process, in which quality has the most significant role. The results also demonstrate the changing image of store brands, the endorsement of such products by consumers of higher socio‐economic status, and lead to important implications for both retailers and manufacturers of consumer products.

The paper introduces random sampling and telephone interviewing to store brand research and provides new insights for managers and researchers.

This paper aims to propose a framework for psychological reactance–triggered adverse effects of variety reductions in grocery product categories on shoppers’ patronage intentions.

The paper tests this framework in two field studies with European shoppers.

Participants perceived mild (let alone aggressive or conspicuous) variety reductions as a threat to their prior freedom of choice (i.e. a precondition for the occurrence of domain-specific reactance). Through lower satisfaction with the reduced variety and anger towards the grocer, this threat, in turn, fostered adverse patronage intentions. Such effects depended on product category nature (utilitarian vs hedonic) and shoppers’ intrinsic need for variety, attitude towards private-label items and general proclivity towards experiencing reactance.

By applying psychological reactance theory to a variety reduction context, this paper offers new implications for assortment reduction research. Certain limitations call for future reactance theory–framed inquiry.

The findings caution against traditional grocers’ drastic variety reduction policy and highlight conditions enabling assortment rationalisation without severely affecting freedom of choice.

Drawing on notions such as “the tyranny of choice”, critics have urged traditional grocers to drastically reduce variety. However, this paper shows that shoppers perceive variety reductions as threats to their prior freedom, which traditional grocers themselves educated them to expect and enjoy.

This paper aims to examine the complexity of attribute configurations affecting tourism decisions related to peer-to-peer accommodation and the sharing economy in destinations affected by recession.

Based on chaos and complexity theories this non-parametric research examines the perspectives of 352 peer-to-peer accommodation holidaymakers in Athens, Greece. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), the study examines the complex relations between social and economic aspects, benefits, risks and consumer trust with regard to purchasing intentions. The paper also compares fsQCA with the dominant linear methods of analysis (regression; Cramer’s V) and highlights fsQCA’s suitability when dealing with tourism complexity.

The results reveal three configurations explaining the attributes of holidaymakers’ tourism decisions characterised by socio-economic orientation, trust formulation and price sensitivity. They also highlight the superiority of fsQCA towards conventional linear analyses in complexity aspects.

The examination of the complexity concept using fsQCA can provide a better understanding of the influence of attributes which affect tourism decisions especially for countries suffering from deep recession such as Greece. Still, due to the lack of fsQCA implementation in tourism studies, its full potential needs to be further examined.

In terms of the literature, the study provides an understanding of the complexity formulation of tourism decisions during recession, with special focus on the sharing economy. It further explores the attributes that affect tourism decisions and associated linkages. Methodologically, the study highlights the value of fsQCA and its advantages compared to conventional methods of correlational analysis. It also progresses from fit to predictive validity for the models suggested.