Market-based pricing in B2B service industries

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the pricing objectives that business-to-business (B2B) service companies pursue to set their prices and to examine the impact of market structure on these objectives. Design/methodology/approach To achieve the research objectives, data were collected from 193 companies operating in four different B2B service industries. Findings The findings of the study indicate that, in the current study, the companies investigated seem to follow various pricing objectives with a particular emphasis being placed on customer-related ones. The study also reveals that the market structure does have an impact on the pricing objectives pursued because different market conditions are found to lead to different pricing objectives. Practical implications The above findings indicate that the managers responsible for setting prices within their firms should follow a “situation-specific approach” and be guided by the unique characteristics of their markets. Originality/value Given the lack of similar studies in the existing B2B services literature, the value of the paper is that it represents one of the first attempts to empirically examine this issue.

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