Abstract
Customers expect pricing practices to be fair, they are specifically sensitive to price increase considered unfair or unacceptable, which eventually influences both behavioural intentions and emotions. Substantial investments are deployed in building positive associations with consumers, which can be subverted by the incident of price increase leading to unfairness perceptions. It is significantly important to mitigate the perceived unfairness perceptions, given the stakes involved. This article investigates the role that styles of thinking (holistic versus analytic) plays in perceived price fairness. The findings of this research show that styles of thinking play a significant role in influencing perceived price fairness. When exposed to negative and/or undesirable events such as price increase, styles of thinking influence cognitive attribution, which, in turn, influences price fairness perceptions. This research adds to the growing literature in price fairness by exploring the influence of thinking styles on perceived price fairness that has not been examined before. These findings suggest that strategies to influence styles of thinking could be useful in managing perceived unfairness perceptions. Marketers and managers could utilise marketing-management strategies based on findings of this research to maintain positive consumer’s perception of price, thereby will improve firms’ performance, in terms of, value, profitability and sales.
Keywords
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Chung, J.Y., Petrick, J.F.: Measuring price fairness: development of a multidimensional scale. J. Travel Tour. Mark. 32, 907–922 (2015)
Han, H., Hyun, S.S.: Customer retention in the medical tourism industry: impact of quality, satisfaction, trust, and price reasonableness. Tour. Manag. 46, 20–29 (2015)
Kasiri, L.A., Cheng, K.T.G., Sambasivan, M., Sidin, S.M.: Integration of standardization and customization: impact on service quality, customer satisfaction, and loyalty. J. Retail. Consum. Serv. 35, 91–97 (2017)
Bolton, L.E., Warlop, L., Alba, J.W.: Consumer perceptions of price (un) fairness. J. Consum. Res. 29, 474–491 (2003)
Bettray, J., Suessmair, A., Dorn, T.: Perceived price fairness in pay-what-you-want: a multi-country study. Am. J. Ind. Bus. Manag. 7, 711 (2017)
Gorondutse, A.H., Hilman, H.: Mediation effect of customer satisfaction on the relationships between service quality and customer loyalty in the Nigerian foods and beverages industry: Sobel test approach. Int. J. Manag. Sci. Eng. Manag. 9, 1–8 (2014)
Xia, L., Monroe, K.B., Cox, J.L.: The price is unfair! A conceptual framework of price fairness perceptions. J. Mark. 68, 1–15 (2004)
Jin, L., He, Y., Zhang, Y.: How power states influence consumers’ perceptions of price unfairness. J. Consum. Res. 40, 818–833 (2013)
Reavey, B., Suri, R.: Determining fairness: a cognitive process of price fairness situations. In: Proceedings of the 2010 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference, p. 177 (2015)
Chung, J.Y., Petrick, J.F.: Price fairness of airline ancillary fees: an attributional approach. J. Travel Res. 52, 168–181 (2013)
Vaidyanathan, R., Aggarwal, P.: Who is the fairest of them all? An attributional approach to price fairness perceptions. J. Bus. Res. 56, 453–463 (2003)
Somervuori, O.: Profiling behavioral pricing research in marketing. J. Prod. Brand Manag. 23, 462–474 (2014)
Rothenberger, S., others: Fairness through transparency: the influence of price transparency on consumer perceptions of price fairness. Work. Pap. CEB. 15 (2015)
Shaw, S., Chovancová, M., Bejtkovský, J.: Consumer behaviour and warranty claim: a study on czech consumers. Econ. Sociol. 10, 90–101 (2017)
Li, W., Hardesty, D.M., Craig, A.W.: The impact of dynamic bundling on price fairness perceptions. J. Retail. Consum. Serv. 40, 204–212 (2018)
Haws, K.L., Bearden, W.O.: Dynamic pricing and consumer fairness perceptions. J. Consum. Res. 33, 304–311 (2006)
Bhowmick, S.: Essays on three price judgments: price fairness, price magnitude, and price expectation (2010)
Pallas, F., Bolton, L.E., Lobschat, L.: Shifting the blame: how surcharge pricing influences blame attributions for a service price increase. J. Serv. Res. 1094670518755314 (2017)
Young Chung, J., James, F.: A conceptual framework of perceived price fairness: an attributional approach (2016)
Chung, J., Petrick, J.: A conceptual framework of perceived price fairness: an attributional approach. In: TTRA Annual Conference Proceedings (2009)
Dominique-Ferreira, S., Vasconcelos, H., Proença, J.F.: Determinants of customer price sensitivity: an empirical analysis. J. Serv. Mark. 30, 327–340 (2016)
Nisbett, R.E., Peng, K., Choi, I., Norenzayan, A.: Culture and systems of thought: holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychol. Rev. 108, 291 (2001)
Cheng, H.-Y., Zhang, S.-Q.: Examining the relationship between holistic/analytic style and classroom learning behaviors of high school students. Eur. J. Psychol. Educ. 32, 271–288 (2017)
Monga, A.B., John, D.R.: What makes brands elastic? The influence of brand concept and styles of thinking on brand extension evaluation. J. Mark. 74, 80–92 (2010)
Monga, A.B., John, D.R.: Understanding cultural differences in brand extension evaluation: the influence of analytic versus holistic thinking (2009)
Lalwani, A.K., Shavitt, S.: You get what you pay for? Self-construal influences price-quality judgments. J. Consum. Res. 40, 255–267 (2013)
Hossain, M.T., Bagchi, R.: How cognitive style influences the mental accounting system: role of analytic versus holistic thinking. J. Consum. Res. (2018)
Dikici, A.: Relationships between thinking styles and behaviors fostering creativity: an exploratory study for the mediating role of certain demographic traits. Educ. Sci. Theory Pract. 14, 179–201 (2014)
Monga, A.B., John, D.R.: When does negative brand publicity hurt? The moderating influence of analytic versus holistic thinking. J. Consum. Psychol. 18, 320–332 (2008)
Choi, B.-J.: The influence of cultural thinking style on consumer cognitive complexity underlying wine purchase decisions. J. Appl. Bus. Res. 32, 1257 (2016)
Monga, A.B., Hsu, L.: How consumers’ styles of thinking can control brand dilution. GfK Mark. Intell. Rev. 10, 40–45 (2018)
de Oliveira, S., Nisbett, R.E.: Culture changes how we think about thinking: from “human inference” to “geography of thought”. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 12, 782–790 (2017)
Monga, A.S.B., Williams, J.D.: Cross-cultural styles of thinking and their influence on consumer behavior. Curr. Opin. Psychol. 10, 65–69 (2016)
Song, L., Swaminathan, S., Anderson, R.E.: Differences in customers’ online service satisfaction across cultures: the role of thinking style. J. Mark. Channels. 22, 52–61 (2015)
Maxwell, S., Mayer, V.F., Stamer, H.H., Diller, H., Avila, M.G.: Reactions to a price increase: what makes it seem fair. Glob. J. Manag. Bus. Res. (2013)
Hollebeek, L.D.: Individual-level cultural consumer engagement styles: conceptualization, propositions and implications. Int. Mark. Rev. 35, 42–71 (2018)
Monga, A.B., John, D.R.: The influence of brand concept and styles of thinking on brand extension evaluation. ACR Eur, Adv (2011)
Chinchanachokchai, S., Noel, H.: The devil is in the details: when holistic thinkers react negatively to incongruent information. Contemp. Manag. Res. 11, 25 (2015)
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the Faculty of Management and Economics at Tomas Bata University in Zlin. This work was supported by the Internal Grant Agency of Tomas Bata University in Zlin under project number IGA/FaME/2018/015.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this paper
Cite this paper
Shaw, S. (2020). The Influence of Thinking Styles on Perceived Price Fairness: An Experimental Study. In: Rocha, Á., Reis, J., Peter, M., Bogdanović, Z. (eds) Marketing and Smart Technologies. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 167. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1564-4_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1564-4_21
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-15-1563-7
Online ISBN: 978-981-15-1564-4
eBook Packages: Intelligent Technologies and RoboticsIntelligent Technologies and Robotics (R0)