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ISSN : 1229-8778
Perceived price fairness of consumers has become an important consideration factor in firm's pricing policies and prior research has emphasized the importance of causes and types of price change. According to prior research, consumers perceive the price change as fair when an increase in a firm's cost makes their price change, whereas consumers perceive the price change as unfair when the pursuit of firm's profit makes their price change. In the context of types of price change, consumers are more sensitive to loss occurrence than to gain decrease. Thus, consumers perceive removal of discounted price more fairly than price increase. But prior research did not consider the motivation level of consumers and suggested the results of the limited situation. Thus, they raise questions about generalizability of results. Therefore, this research examines the roles of self-regulatory focus and the types of price change on fairness perceptions of consumers across causes of price change. Especially, this research suggests “gain decrease” as “capacity decrease of products”(experiment 1) or “quality decrease”(experiment 2). The findings indicate that consumers were more likely to perceive fairness when firm's price change was caused by increasing cost(vs. the pursuit of profit). Also, when price change was caused by increasing cost, the effects of self-regulatory focus and the types of price change were not significant. However, when price change was caused by the pursuit of profit, the effects of the types of price change on fairness perceptions of consumers vary depending on self-regulatory focus. Individuals in a promotion focus regarded price increase more fairly than quality decrease or capacity decrease of products, whereas individuals in a prevention focus considered quality or capacity decrease more fairly than price increase. Finally, discussion of the results, implications, and new ideas for further research were suggested.
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