We explore how financial scarcity affects the strategy people choose to pay off their debts and the role of information avoidance in debt repayment. We conduct an online experiment in the United Kingdom (N = 1,000) in which people are endowed with multiple debts and given the task to pay off as many debts as possible during 15 rounds. We manipulate the level of financial scarcity by randomly assigning individuals to experience either a negative, a positive, or no financial shock during these 15 rounds. The results show that perceived financial scarcity is related to less optimal debt repayment. In conclusion, our findings suggest that perceived scarcity propels further scarcity due to poor debt management.

Convoluted language makes excessive use of difficult expressions and style. This type oflanguage is often used to describe financial products. Anecdotal and empirical evidencesuggests that convoluted language can have an adverse effect on consumers. However, it isless clear how exactly convoluted language affects consumers’ financial decisions. The mainobjective of our project was to explore how convoluted language affects consumers offinancial products. We conducted two online experiments in which we investigated the impactof terms and conditions of car insurance policies described in simple versus convolutedlanguage to consumers. Results indicate that convoluted language has an adverse effect onthe emotional aspects of financial well-being, purchase intention, and the understanding offinancial products; even when controlling for demographic variables (e.g., gender, age).Consumer’s financial self-efficacy, financial knowledge, and numerical ability had little impacton this adverse effect. Our findings highlight the importance to consider—and potentiallychange—how information is presented when describing and communicating financialproducts.

Independent store managers—who constitute a substantial portion of the retailing sector—often have limited resources with which to practice the formalized, data-driven pricing processes prescribed in the literature. On that basis, this article addresses how independent convenience store managers arrive at prices and whether their practices are effective. To begin with, 33 interviews with independent convenience store managers identified six common beliefs and ten practices underlying managers’ intuitive decision making. Based on point-of-sale survey data from 1,504 customers of two convenience store chains at petrol stations, a second study compared market-oriented managerial beliefs with actual customer price perceptions and buying behaviors. The combined insights from these studies reveal that managers base their pricing decisions on beliefs that are only partially accurate and suggests how managers might benefit by altering their price-setting practices.

Despite the semantics, the “sharing economy” is not about true sharing (e.g., Belk 2014) but really about firms offering the benefits of owning goods without the burdens of ownership—the rental/access paradigm in service research (Lovelock and Gumesson 2004). In this new sharing paradigm conceptualized as collaborative consumption (Benoit et al. 2017), services firms take on the role of enablers by developing online platforms facilitating the peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges of private resources—also called consumer-to-consumer (C2C) exchanges—forming a triadic relationship between peer providers and consumers.

While true sharing practices are not market-mediated, collaborative consumption practices in the “sharing economy” are market-mediated by platforms. In other words, consumers compensate peer providers monetarily for using their goods temporarily. That is, collaborative consumption practices are situated between true sharing practices and traditional market exchanges. 

However, there has been a lack of empirical research impeding the understanding of collaborative consumption. Most published articles on the phenomenon are conceptual or based on illustrations and anecdotes (e.g., Belk 2014; Benoit et al. 2017). In particular, scholarly research has yet to explore what participation motives for collaborative consumption are most related to people’s inclination towards the true sharing ethos, their trend orientation in the fad in the “sharing economy”, or a professional orientation (vs. amateurism).

The present study explores the different relationships between the three most important drivers of individual participation in collaborative consumption (i.e., cost-savings, social motives, and environmental concerns) and the participants’ orientation towards true sharing, the “sharing economy”, and professionalization. The results (see Table 1) are based on three OLS regression models, based on a survey of 381 active platform users, in the context of ridesharing. Cost-savings (β= .39, p< .001) and social motives (β= .34, p< .001), but not environmental concerns (ß= .08, p= n.s.) are significantly related to a truesharing orientation. Moreover, social motives (β= .27, p< .001) but neither cost-savings (β= .06, p= n.s.) nor environmental concerns (β= .09, p= n.s.) are significantly related to the “sharing economy” trend orientation. Finally, cost-savings (β= .11, p< .05), social motives (β= .22, p< .001), and environmental concerns (β= .18, p< .001) are significantly related to a professional orientation.

This study contributes to service research by focusing on the P2P or C2C consumer context that is specific to the collaborative consumption phenomenon and mostly empirically unexplored, and showing how it differs from access-based services with B2C interactions. Contrary to what would be expected (i.e. social motives would only be related with true sharing, and cost-savings more likely to be linked with the “sharing economy” trend), the study shows that social motives play a strong role for both orientations, as well as professionalization. That is, to benefit from the fad of the “sharing economy”, firms should balance their communication on cost-savings with an emphasis on the social aspects of collaborative consumption without falling into the pitfalls of “sharewashing”.

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate factors that affect the use of value-based selling and the subsequent influences on salespeople’s sales performance.

Design/methodology/approach

Industrial salespeople from five steel manufacturers were surveyed. Scales measure three components of value-based selling: comprehension, crafting and confirmation. Partial least squares path analysis tested the conceptual model.

Findings

Salespeople’s learning orientation has the greatest impact on the use of value-based selling. Managerial support exerts a positive effect on crafting. Salespeople’s experience has a positive impact on comprehension and confirmation. The implementation of value-based selling has a positive effect on sales performance.

Research limitations/implications

The research is cross-sectional, with a small sample size (n = 60). The data were collected from a single source (i.e. salespeople).

Practical implications

The results suggest that value-based selling is a multi-component sales process that requires balancing managerial actions among individual and organizational factors.

Originality/value

This paper presents a broad evaluation of measures and assessments of value-based selling in business-to-business sales settings. The findings provide new elaborations on the theoretical and practical implications of value-based selling and reveal which individual and organizational factors affect the usage of value-based selling.

Enabling customer value creation is central to marketing theory and practice. Yet, doing so does not ensure that supplier firms profit from it. Value-based pricing and selling come with the prospect of translating customer value creation into greater profits for suppliers. However, despite sustained interest, only a limited number of firms emphasize value-based pricing and selling. Existing research has highlighted organizational challenges as potential reasons. Unfortunately, this focus on organizational challenges obscures the role of individuals within organizations (i.e., its micro-foundations), such as the fact that managers and salespeople determine and realize prices. The purpose of this thesis is thus to describe and analyze the micro-foundations of value-based pricing and selling in business markets.

The thesis’ conceptual framework introduces bounded rationality and heterogeneity—two overlooked forces—to investigate the affective, cognitive, and motivational micro-foundations of value-based pricing and selling. The thesis’ empirical foundation consists of five papers that investigate the microfoundations suggested by the framework.

The findings indicate that research would benefit from a wider variety of research approaches. Currently, insights into micro-foundations are lacking, in part due to the focus on research designs and theories aimed at the organizational level; experimental designs and theories from psychology would allow amendments to prior research. Furthermore, individual rationality and individual differences play a role. In this regard, managers’ cognitive biases impact upon the extent to which firms focus on value-based pricing. Moreover, price presentation impacts managers’ value perception and purchase intention. The findings also suggest that managers’ personalities and salespeople’s experience and learning orientation are important individual differences affecting the emphasis on valuebased pricing and selling. Consequently, affective, cognitive and motivational micro-foundations—arising due to bounded rationality and heterogeneity— explain some of the challenges associated with value-based pricing and selling.

This thesis contributes with insights into several micro-foundations affecting value-based pricing and selling. In so doing, the thesis belongs to a growing stream of research that is shifting the focus from organizational processes to the individual foundations of value-based pricing and selling. The thesis also provides suggestions on how managers can use micro-foundations to the advantage of their firms.

Att möjliggöra värdeskapande för kunder är centralt för marknadsföringsteori och -praktik. Detta är dock ingen garanti för att leverantörsföretaget kommer att kunna få del av värdet. Värdebaserad prissättning och försäljning ses i detta sammanhang som sätt på vilka leverantörer kan ta del av kundens ökade värdeskapande. Trots ett ökat intresse för koncepten i näringslivet är antalet företag som systematiskt arbetar med värdebaserad prissättning och försäljning begränsat. Anledningen till detta tillskrivs ofta de organisatoriska utmaningar som företagen ställs inför. Fokus på de organisatoriska utmaningarna skymmer dessvärre individens roll inom organisationen (dvs. dess mikrofundament), såsom att chefer och säljare bestämer och realiserar priser. Syftet med denna avhandling är således att beskriva och analysera mikrofundamenten av värdebaserad prissättning och försäljning på företagsmarknader.

Avhandlingens konceptuella ramverk introducerar begränsad rationalitet och heterogenitet—två förbisedda faktorer—för att undersöka affektiva, kognitiva och motiverande mikrofundament av värdebaserad prissättning och försäljning. Avhandlingens empiriska grund består av fem papper som undersöker mikrofundamenten som föreslås av ramverket.

Resultaten tyder på att fortsatt forskning skulle gynnas av en bredare mängd olika forskningsmetoder. För närvarande saknas insikter om mikrofundament delvis på grund av fokus på metoder och teorier som huvudsakligen undersöker organisationsnivån. Genom mer forskning som bygger på teorier hämtade från psykologi samt experimentella metoder skulle forskningsfältet kunna utvecklas. Dessutom spelar individuell rationalitet och individuella skillnader en roll. I detta avseende påverkar beslutsfattares kognitiva biaser i vilken utsträckning företaget fokuserar på värdebaserad prissättning. Vidare påverkar prispresentation beslutsfattares värdeuppfattning och köpintention. Resultaten visar även att chefers personlighet och säljares erfarenhet och inlärningsorientering är viktiga individuella skillnader som påverkar företagets fokus på värdebaserad prissättning och försäljning. Affektiva, kognitiva och motiverande mikrofundament som har sin grund i begränsad rationalitet och heterogenitet kan därmed förklara några av de utmaningar som är förknippade med värdebaserad prissättning och försäljning.

Avhandlingen bidrar med insikter kring flera av de mikrofundament som påverkar värdebaserad prissättning och försäljning. Den sällar sig således till den växande forskningsström som skiftar fokus från organisationsprocesser till individnivå för att bättre förstå värdebaserad prissättning och försäljning. Avhandlingen ger även ett praktiskt bidrag genom förslag på hur beslutsfattare kan använda mikrofundament till fördel för sina företag.  

To investigate how cognitive biases inhibit value-based pricing practices among managers in business markets, this article considers five different cognitive biases—perceived lack of control, herding, fixed-pie bias, ambiguity aversion, and egocentric fairness bias—and their effects on value-based pricing. Despite recent calls for more research on the psychological aspects of pricing, few studies have focused on business markets. Drawing on research in psychology and marketing for its theoretical foundation, this overview extends the limited body of existing research. The article's key contribution is to explain how psychological challenges affect value-based pricing practices, with implications and suggestions for further research.

This article investigates the development and current state of pricing strategy research by undertaking a content analysis of 515 articles published in leading academic journals between 1995 and 2016. The results suggest several developments in research focus and methodology; recent research has focused more strongly on services and applies more rigorous research designs. The results also indicate a persistent focus on consumer markets and economic theories, as well as an increasing consideration of demand-side respondents, at the expense of supply-side respondents. An important feature of this review is a set of actionable takeaways, with both theoretical and methodological implications for pricing strategy research.

At the heart of long-term success lies firms’ ability to provide customers with products and services that enable customer value creation and firms’ ability to capture value in the form of profits. To this effect, managers and salespeople have an impact on a firm’s value creation and value capture ability through their pricing and selling behavior and decisions. Value-based pricing and value-based selling are two practices that allow firms to create customer value and capture value for the firm that have witnessed a recent surge in interest. Despite this growing interest, many investigations reside on the firm level, and thus, factors influencing individual managers and salespeople in the usage of both practices have been rather overlooked. The purpose of this licentiate thesis is to investigate factors influencing those individuals’ practice of pricing and selling value.

The research is based on three articles that investigate pricing and selling value from different vantage points. The articles include a literature review that shows developments in and the current state of pricing strategy research; a study investigating the effects of managerial personality on the usage of value-based pricing for a new industrial service; and a survey that explores salesperson’s usage of value-based selling in the steel industry.

The thesis finds that pricing strategy research increasingly considers customer value by investigating strategies grounded in value-based pricing practices and increasing focus on customer value through more research on services. Further, the magnitude of internal and external factors influences managers and salespersons’ use of value-based pricing and selling. Finally, the research outlines approaches for managers responsible for pricing and selling to deal with the effects of the identified factors on value-based pricing and selling.

The research contributes with an exploration and assessment of factors influencing managers and salespeople in using value-based pricing and selling and discusses how firms can deal with these factors. In doing so, the research contributes to pricing and selling literature and the evolving focus on individual aspects in pricing and selling value.

Grunden för långsiktig framgång ligger i företagens förmåga att förse kunderna med produkter och tjänster som möjliggör skapandet av kundvärde och företagens förmåga att fånga värde i form av vinster. För detta ändamål har managers och säljare en inverkan på ett företags värdeskapande och värdefångande förmåga genom sin prissättning och försäljningsbeteende samt beslut. Värdebaserad prissättning och värdebaserad försäljning är två tillvägagångssätt som gör det möjligt för företag att skapa kundvärde och fånga värde för företaget som har bevittnat en ny våg av intresse. Trots detta växande intresse fokuserar många undersökningar på företagsnivå, och därmed förbises faktorer som påverkar enskilda managers och säljare i användningen av de båda tillvägagångssätten. Syftet med denna studien är att undersöka faktorer som påverkar dessa individers tillvägagångssätt av prissättning och försäljning av värdet.

Forskningen bygger på tre artiklar som undersöker prissättning och försäljning av värdet från olika utgångspunkter. Artiklarna består av en litteraturgenomgång som visar utvecklingen och det aktuella läget för prisstrategiforskning, en studie som undersöker effekterna av managers personlighet på användningen av värdebaserad prissättning för en ny industriell tjänst, och en undersökning som utforskar säljarens användning av värdebaserad försäljning inom stålindustrin.

Studien konstaterar att prisstrategiforskning tar alltmer hänsyn till kundvärde genom att undersöka strategier förankrade i värdebaserad prissättning och ett ökat fokus på kundnytta genom mer forskning om tjänster. Vidare visar studien att omfattningen av interna och externa faktorer påverkar managers och säljares användning av värdebaserad prissättning och försäljning. Slutligen beskriver forskningen ansatser för managers, med ansvar för prissättning och försäljning, för att ta itu med effekterna av de identifierade faktorerna på värdebaserad prissättning och försäljning.

Forskningen bidrar med en utforskning och utvärdering av faktorer som påverkar managers och säljare i att använda värdebaserad prissättning och försäljning och diskuterar hur företag kan hantera dessa faktorer. På så sätt bidrar forskningen till prissättning och försäljningslitteraturen samt den framväxande fokusen på individuella aspekter i prissättning och försäljning av värde.