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A paradox seems to emerge when public information is priced without associated costs of electronic distribution. This paper investigates this paradox in light of recent Norwegian government policymaking. The picture seems to be that neither pricing principles nor practices are consistent with information policies, technological advances or theories of information economics.

This study aims to map and analyze health-care pricing information research. This work highlights current gap in pricing information research in health care and proposes future research avenues to academia and industry professionals.

A bibliometric method was adopted to analyze extant literature on pricing information asymmetry. Semistructured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders in health care to triangulate the findings.

Pricing information is crucial for all stakeholders including health-care consumers, providers and regulators. The popular research areas were the rising health-care cost, cost-saving, outcome-based pricing, price based on service supply and demand, insurance and out-of-pocket spending. Cost–quality perceived linkages, cost–demand correlation in health-care service and cost–price interlinked drivers were the dominant themes in extant literature. The study highlighted that pricing information asymmetry pushed patients from weaker sections into a debt trap due to unplanned out-of-pocket health-care expenses. The study suggests areas of research to minimize this pricing information asymmetry.

The emerging themes in health pricing asymmetry will help key stakeholders to identify areas for improvement and take remedial actions in the health-care domain.

This study is a pioneering effort to summarize extant literature published in the health-care information pricing domain and analyze it from a bibliometric perspective. The study also triangulates the finding with primary data from key stakeholders and highlights emerging research areas.

This paper addresses the topic of information service and information product pricing. It aims to combine a discussion of principles with practical examples of pricing in a range of different services, from library revenue earning activities, through online and products, to emerging electronic services. Pricing is considered as part of a market approach to information services which assumes the development of a culture in which information is valued as an economic commodity.

In capital market, share prices of listed companies generally respond to accounting information. In 1995, Ohlson proposed a share valuation model based on two accounting indicators: company residual income and book value of net asset. In 2000, Zhang introduced the thought of option pricing and developed a new accounting valuation model. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the valuation deviation and the influence of some market transaction characteristics on pricing models.

The authors use listed companies from 1999 to 2013 as samples, and conduct comparative analysis with multiple regression.

The main findings are: first, the accounting valuation model is applicable to the capital market as a whole, and its pricing effect increases as years go by; second, in the environment of out capital market, the maturity of investors is one of important factors that causes the information content of residual income less than that of profit per share and lower pricing effect of valuation models; third, when the price earning (PE) of listed companies reaches certain level, the overall explanation capacity of accounting valuation models will become lower as PE gets higher; fourth, as for companies with higher turnover rate and more active transaction, the pricing effect of accounting valuation model is obviously lower; fifth, the pricing effect of accounting valuation models in a bull market is lower than in a bear market.

These findings establish connection between accounting valuation and market transaction characteristics providing an explorable orientation for the future development of accounting valuation theories and models.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the pricing policies that service companies adopt along with the pricing information that they gather to set their prices. Despite previous authors' suggestions regarding the need for a coherent process when setting prices, there seems to be a lack of empirically‐based theory on how pricing policies and pricing information might be interrelated.

Following 26 in‐depth exploratory interviews, additional personal interview data were collected from 170 companies operating in six different services sectors in Greece.

The paper finds that “list pricing” is the only policy that is adopted by the majority of the surveyed companies. Further, they tend to collect more than one type of information giving particular emphasis on market‐based information. The “customer‐based” information was found to be associated positively with the policy of “cash discounts”, while the “competition‐based” information with the policies of “trade discounts” and “differentiated pricing”. Moreover, the “cost‐based information” is associated positively with the “cash discounts” and “efficiency pricing” policies and negatively with the “loss leader pricing” policy.

The findings refer to the need for a “balanced” market‐oriented and “situation‐specific” approach when setting prices The significance of these findings notwithstanding, the context of the study (Greece) is the most important caveat since it limits the ability to generalize the results in other countries.

The paper represents the first attempt to examine empirically the potential relationship between pricing policies and pricing information.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the external antecedents of pricing information acquisition in an integrative manner. The study develops understanding of determinants of information acquisition as a crucial prerequisite of successful pricing strategies within German small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

A large scale survey of sampled 2,542 SMEs was conducted. A total of 220 questionnaires were completed, reflecting a response rate of 9 per cent. This was acceptable considering the sensitivity of pricing issues. A final sample of 173 usable questionnaires were obtained.

The result indicates that external antecedents of pricing information acquisition practices have a positive impact on SME pricing performance, and pricing performance is positively related to firm performance.

The study indicates that external antecedents of pricing information acquisition are strategic pricing capabilities, which should receive attention by SME managers.

This study bridges significant obstacle to knowledge generation and theory development of the important issues of pricing information acquisition in SMEs.

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.

While marketing and management research suggests that managers’ individual characteristics influence pricing decisions, the influence of personality traits in this context remains unclear. This study aims to explore the relationship between the five basic personality traits of the five-factor model (extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness and neuroticism) and three basic pricing practices (value-, competition- and cost-informed).

On the basis of a non-experimental decision-making scenario, the analysis examines the pricing decisions of 57 managers in relation to a new business service.

The results suggest that managers’ conscientiousness and openness to experience are positively related to preference for value-informed pricing. Similarly, managers’ agreeableness is positively related to preference for competition-informed pricing and managers’ openness to experience and agreeableness are positively related to preference for cost-informed pricing.

The cross-sectional study design does not support causal inference, and the modest sample size may limit the external validity of the findings.

By increasing awareness of the influence of personality on pricing preferences, the findings are of relevance to managers who are directly involved in pricing decisions. Additionally, the findings are informative for managers who must assign responsibility for pricing authority within firms.

This empirical exploration of the relationship between certain personality traits and specific pricing practices contributes to the literature on psychological aspects of pricing theory by showing how managerial personality influences pricing preferences under uncertainty.

This paper aims to first investigate how unit pricing affects consumers’ grocery purchase decisions and perceptions of the shopping task’s information load. The second goal is to test how time pressure enhances the behavioural and perceptual effects of displaying unit prices.

Two on-line experiments were conducted using national samples of shoppers. In Study 1, participants indicated their choices and perceptions in an inter-brand shopping scenario where prepackaged products have conflicting positions on retail price and unit price. In Study 2, participants conducted the same shopping task but now under a condition of time pressure.

Study 1 shows that unit pricing shifts consumer choices towards the lower unit priced options and improves their perceptions of task information load. Study 2 shows that when consumers are under time pressure, unit pricing shows stronger effects on choices but not on perceptions.

The study comprised a fairly homogenous set of low involvement categories and relatively small assortments in a hypothetical purchase setting. Exploration of the role of unit pricing in more complex and more realistic purchase environments pose suitable avenues for future research.

This study shows that consumers benefit from unit pricing because it makes it easier for them to find the lower unit priced items and to more quickly complete their shopping task. Retailers will benefit from increased customer satisfaction and possibly an improved store image.

The study shows that consumers generally benefit from the presence of unit pricing and that unit price information does not create harmful effects in terms of increasing their information load.

This study uses a specifically designed and controlled but nevertheless realistic grocery choice task to study the effects of unit pricing in an inter-brand context where there are only small differences in size and price. The study contributes to the literature by showing that in such conditions, unit prices help consumers compare the economic losses associated with product options. Their heuristic role is more pronounced when consumers are under time pressure. The study shows that consumers generally benefit from the presence of unit prices.

In the face of increased pricing pressure, managerial attention for value‐informed pricing (in which a price is based on the customer's value perception) is on the rise. Although value‐informed pricing in its organizational context received a great deal of attention, the body of literature is fragmented and insights are often not cumulative. It is the aim of this article to review and integrate the empirical literature on pricing practices in order to pave the road for future research.

Empirical studies on pricing practices are collected and reviewed. Building on the resource‐based view of the firm, the findings from these studies are summarized in an integrative framework that includes testable research propositions.

Value‐informed pricing is the result of the deployment of informational resources such as market research, relationships and internal knowledge on customers. Firms should not only develop these information sources, but also secure the process by which they are deployed. The latter is among others influenced by the competitive context and organizational information processing that may evolve into a routine.

The article integrates the insights from a stream of research that thus far has been highly fragmented. It generates insights that may help firms to establish a value‐informed pricing process and it may help to develop a more mature body of research on value‐informed pricing.