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The purpose of this study is to understand the profit implications of analytics-driven centralized discriminatory pricing at the headquarter level compared with sales force price delegation in the purchase of an aftermarket good through an indirect retail channel with symmetric information.

Using individual-level loan application and approval data from a North American financial institution and segment-level customer risk as the price discrimination criterion for the firm, the authors develop a three-stage model that accounts for the salesperson’s price decision within the limits of the latitude provided by the firm; the firm’s decision to approve or not approve a sales application; and the customer’s decision to accept or reject a sales offer conditional on the firm’s approval. Next, the authors compare the profitability of this sales force price delegation model to that of a segment-level centralized pricing model where agent incentives and consumer prices are simultaneously optimized using a quasi-Newton nonlinear optimization algorithm (i.e. Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno algorithm).

The results suggest that implementation of analytics-driven centralized discriminatory pricing and optimal sales force incentives leads to double-digit lifts in firm profits. Moreover, the authors find that the high-risk customer segment is less price-sensitive and firms, upon leveraging this segment’s willingness to pay, not only improve their bottom-line but also allow these marginalized customers with traditionally low approval rates access to loans. This points out the important customer welfare implications of the findings.

Substantively, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to empirically investigate the profitability of analytics-driven segment-level (i.e. discriminatory) centralized pricing compared with sales force price delegation in indirect retail channels (i.e. where agents are external to the firm and have access to competitor products), taking into account the decisions of the three key stakeholders of the process, namely, the consumer, the salesperson and the firm and simultaneously optimizing sales commission and centralized consumer price.

This paper aims to explore the applied context of grocery retail pricing practice to understand how pricing executives approach “regular price” decision-making (as opposed to promotional pricing). The study seeks to inductively develop a model of regular price decision-making in grocery retailing.

The research uses an inductive methodology involving interviews with pricing executives working for grocery retailers that account for approximately 85 per cent of the UK, and 64 per cent of USA, grocery market retail sales. The approach is appropriate given the underdeveloped research insights into regular pricing within food retailers.

It is found that regular pricing is undertaken with little sophistication, typically, on the basis of simple, inflexible rules that result in conflicting goals. A typology of three pricing roles was identified, although all share an underdeveloped understanding of the effects of price changes on customer demand and the implications of competitor reactions. These contexts, causes and conditions lead to a range of consequences; notably, a degree of pricing inertia, “customer-less” pricing and “enforced symbiosis” – coping outcomes. Taken together, a theory of “passivity” pricing is identified.

The research presents a contribution to new knowledge in the field of retail marketing by developing theory in retail pricing. In contrast to much extant research on grocery pricing, this paper accesses the insights and opinions of the pricing executives themselves. It exposes the realities of regular price decision-making across two developed retail markets and offers managerial insights.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze price decision-making through a practice-based approach. The paper investigates the micro-level practices used to arrive at sales price decisions.

In this study, a qualitative study approach is used to develop findings abductively. The data are gathered through an in-depth case study at two firms: semi-structured interviews, meeting observations, shadowing and pricing documents.

This paper finds that pricing is a collective decision-making process involving multiple actors across the organization. The case firms work on solving information, coordination and control problems to arrive at sales prices by enacting interlinked practices. Pricing is therefore neither a structure nor a single decision but a process consisting of multiple micro-level practices that enable firms to make pricing decisions.

This paper develops a practice-based approach to pricing that conceptualize the micro-level practices used to to make pricing decisions in the face of information, coordination and control problems. The paper is interdisciplinary and adds to the accounting literature and the market literature, which have tended to study pricing as a decision made by one decision maker, and not as an organizational process where multiple actors share, evaluate, interpret and coordinate information and decisions.

Economic theory depicts a price‐setter who is cognizant of both the incremental profit implications of changing price and likely competitive reactions. Marketplace observations suggest otherwise; several studies and anecdotal evidence find a tendency for pricing to be driven by cost and market share rather than marginal profit. Further, recent evidence suggests that competitive reactions are often overlooked. This paper develops an explanation of these observations via decision accountability. The literature on accountability is based on the premise that in any social or organizational context, people are compelled to make decisions that can be justified. This justification involves searching for criteria on which those decisions will be judged by others and decision making which can be rationalized on those criteria. New evidence reviewed here suggests that people tend to justify decisions on the basis of more familiar and less ambiguous criteria, giving too little weight to more ambiguous but important considerations. The omission of future profit projections and competitive behavior in decision making, then, can be explained by ambiguity surrounding the estimation of these factors (relative to more concretely measured and familiar internal criteria). I examine three case studies that illustrate how firms have changed information strategy, culture, and competitive thinking in the interest of making profitability and competitive information more justifiable inputs for pricing decisions.

While existing research has established various methods for pricing, the impact of a manager’s individual psychological profile on his/her price setting behavior is relatively unexamined. This is especially critical in the context of pricing decisions implemented in response to competitive forces. This paper aims to explore how a manager’s price responses to price cuts by a competitor are affected by his/her cognitive style, gender and entrepreneurial attitudes.

In the first study, a simulation-based pricing environment is used in a lab setting to capture the dynamics of pricing decisions made in response to competitive price cuts. Participants’ price responses are captured in the form of the magnitude of price change implemented in a simulated environment in response to a competitor’s price reduction. The second study extends the scope of inquiry by using a national sample of business professionals and replicates and reinforces the findings of the first study by capturing participants’ attitudinal response on the decision to reduce prices in reaction to competitive price reductions.

The results of both studies indicate significant effects for cognitive style, gender and entrepreneurial attitudes. Individuals with stronger entrepreneurial attitudes and analytical cognitive styles, and females are less likely to engage in reactive price reductions.

The findings of this study indicate that managers’ propensity to engage in price changes in reaction to competitors can be linked to their psychological profile and gender.

Given the existence of the relationship between price reactions of managers and their cognitive style and entrepreneurial attitudes, the training and development of pricing professionals may need to take these individual-level factors into account.

This is the first study that has linked managers’ propensity to engage in price changes in reaction to competitors to their gender and psychological profile.

The paper attempts to discuss the impact of reference price effect on pricing decisions.

With the growth of the Internet and e-commerce, more and more customers purchase products in through online channels and choose products by comparing different prices and services, and the reference price effect has an impact on pricing decisions. To investigate the impact of consumers' reference price effect on the dual-channel supply chain, the authors establish a basic model consisting of a single dominant manufacturer and a single downstream retailer, and analyze the optional decisions under different situations and discuss the influence of reference price effect. Finally, a number case verifies the validity and rationality of the proposed model.

The results show that (1) the reference price effect has varying effects on the price, channel demand and income of manufacturers and retailers in the channel depending on the role of customers' channel preferences. (2) The manufacturer's online channel demand and profits always increase with the reference pricing effect, whereas the retailer's offline demand and profits always decline. (3) When the proportion of consumers preferring offline is higher, the manufacturer's network price and wholesale price increase with the reference price effect, while the retailer's retail price decreases with the reference price effect; when the proportion of consumers preferring offline is lower, the opposite is true, and the centralized decision results are consistent with the decentralized decision results.

This paper can clarify the impact of consumer reference price effects on the operation of dual-channel supply chains, and help inform pricing decisions of manufacturers and retailers in dual-channel supply chains.

The proposed approach can well analyze the impact of consumer reference price effect and give channel their optional decisions.

The purpose of this article is to assess managers' evaluation of risk associated with applicable uncontrollable forces when developing pricing strategies.

The present study is based on attribution theory. An experiment using more than 100 business managers was conducted to assess the perceived risk of uncontrollable environmental factors.

The findings suggest that when uncontrollable environmental factors dominate pricing managers tend to select pricing strategies with external orientations to deflect risk away from themselves personally.

This research is limited to pricing strategies and not a broader selection of marketing strategies. The present research provides greater insight as to why managers make certain strategic pricing decisions.

This paper suggests management should frame decision‐making contexts so that minimizing personal exposure is consistent with corporate goals and objectives.

This paper is an extension of previous research examining the managers' perception of risk. In particular, this paper focuses on how managers examine/evaluate risk and how that impacts their decision‐making process when selecting pricing strategies.

Considering the cross-market network externality, this paper aims to explore the platform’s pricing decisions and its optimal profit under the given government investment, and then investigate the investment decision to improve social responsibility, which is measured by the social welfare.

When exploring the optimal pricing decisions under the given government investment, extreme value theory and sensitive analysis are used. When investigating the investment level, game theory and optimization method are used. Numerical examples are conducted to further illustrate the results.

First, after considering the government investment, whether the buyers and the sellers are charged depends on the investment level and the difference of the cross-market network externality (CNC) of the sellers and the buyers. Second, the optimal price on the sellers is decreasing (increasing) in the CNC of the buyers (sellers). The optimal price on the buyers is significantly affected by the investment level. Finally, the government investment is win-win for both the platform and the government, and Chinese Government should invest on the sellers heavily.

This study specifies the role of the government investment on the sellers in determining the platform’s pricing decisions and the improvement of the social responsibility, which is measured by social welfare.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of qualitative demand factors in companies' pricing decisions.

An empirical study was carried out, interviewing price managers in a selection of 74 companies from Andalusia (Spain).

It has been observed that qualitative aspects play a secondary role in pricing decisions. There are two main reasons: quantitative information is easier to obtain, use and interpret than qualitative information; and most companies, and in particular smaller ones, have no budget available for qualitative market studies.

The empirical research is based on a sample of companies in the food sector. This opens several lines of future research: to diversify the areas of activity participating in the study; to include other company characteristics in the analysis; and to design operative methods for incorporating qualitative demand factors into pricing decisions.

The relevance of this study lies in the strong influence that can be exerted over consumers' purchasing decisions by qualitative aspects of demand.

The purpose of this research is to investigate how to introduce a financing scheme to tackle the manufacturer's capital constraint problem, discuss the effects of data-driven marketing (DDM) quality, cross-channel-return (CCR) rate and financing interest rate on the members' pricing and delivery-lead-time decisions and optimal performances, and analyzes `how to achieve the coordination within a dual-channel supply chain (DSC) by contract coordination.

This work establishes a DSC model with DDM, and the offline retailer can provide internal financing to the capital-constrained online manufacturer. The demand under the price is determined based on DDM quality, customer channel preference and delivery lead time. Then, combined with the Stackelberg game, the optimal pricing and delivery-lead-time decisions are discussed under the inconsistent and consistent pricing strategies with decentralized and centralized systems. Furthermore, it designs a manufacturer-revenue sharing contract to coordinate the members under the two pricing strategies.

(1) The increase of DDM quality will reduce the delivery-lead-time under the inconsistent or consistent pricing strategy and will push the selling prices; (2) The growth of the CCR rate will raise selling prices and extend the delivery-lead-time under the decentralized decision; (3) Under price competition, the offline selling price is higher than the online selling price when customers prefer the offline channel and vice versa; (4) The retailer and the manufacturer can achieve a win-win situation through a manufacturer-revenue sharing contract.

This paper contributes to the studies related to DSC by investigating pricing and delivery-lead-time decisions based on DDM, CCR, internal financing and supply chain contract and proposes some managerial implications.