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PRICE WARS AND MANAGERIAL SENSEMAKING: A MIXED-METHODS STUDY

Cardot, Rick
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1620760545940417

Abstract Details

2021, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Management.
Managers report a high incidence of becoming engaged in price wars they seek to avoid. This dissertation explores how managers make sense of their environments and attend to the stimuli to read situations as ones that involve a price war or are conducive to such behaviors. No research has been conducted on such sensemaking behaviors and their consequences on war-like behaviors among managers. I utilize a sequential mixed-methods design and grounded theory to examine and explain manager engagement in unintentional price wars. I interviewed and collected data from 25 active pricing managers to understand how they make sense of pricing situations and price wars. Avoidance of labeling situations as price wars, fluid and incomplete definitions of price wars, and blaming competitors for starting price wars characterized their experience. In a subsequent quantitative study, data was collected from 173 managers to empirically test to what extent aggressive language use, a competitor orientation, explicit use of price war labeling, and aggressive disposition contributed to price war-like behaviors. My findings suggest that managers lack refined frames for perceiving and evaluating price war-like situations. This gap, propagated by manager avoidance of price war discussion and labeling in favor of alternative aggression metaphor, results in managers adopting an aggressive disposition, leading to price war-like behavior and non-recognition of situations as price wars. Several environmental aspects were also found to significantly impact price wars, including adopting a competitor managerial pricing orientation and competitive intensity. This research contributes to the nascent literature on managerial sensemaking. This theory has not previously been applied to pricing processes and especially those of price war-related behaviors. In this regard, the study offers a unique perspective on managers’ perceptions and cognition around price wars. The work identifies an empirically validated model of multiple factors that explain manager engagement in unintentional price wars.
Kalle Lyytinen, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Stephan Liozu, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
William Brake, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Philip Cola, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
235 p.
Management
pricing; price wars; sensemaking; competition; aggression

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Cardot, R. (2021). PRICE WARS AND MANAGERIAL SENSEMAKING: A MIXED-METHODS STUDY [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1620760545940417

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Cardot, Rick. PRICE WARS AND MANAGERIAL SENSEMAKING: A MIXED-METHODS STUDY . 2021. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1620760545940417.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Cardot, Rick. "PRICE WARS AND MANAGERIAL SENSEMAKING: A MIXED-METHODS STUDY ." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1620760545940417

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1620760545940417
557
© 2021, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.