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Claes, Marcus M. 
ORCID: 0000-0002-5077-6451
(2017)
The Investigation of the Critical Success Factors for Price Strategy of Information Technology (IT) Services.
DBA thesis, University of Gloucestershire.
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Text (Final Thesis)
DBA_Thesis_M_Claes_Publication.pdf - Accepted Version Available under License All Rights Reserved. Download (4MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Objectives: The aim of the research is to investigate the critical success factors for price strategy of information technology (IT) services. The discrepancy between the isolated focus of the research on the influential variables on pricing decisions and the multi-dimensional reality of the marketing mix that managers must deal with is the theory-practice gap. This research seeks to reduce the theory-practice gap by identifying the reciprocal dependencies between internal price-setting and external price strategy, examining the personal views of pricing managers on the critical success factors, and determining recommendations for practical pricing process improvements. Methodology: The researcher sets an antithetic point to the previous, mainly quantitative, pricing research by performing an interpretive approach to overcome the deficiencies in the research quality and provide explorative research. The research method of choice, considering the high complexity of pricing research, is a sequential semi-structured interview accompanied by a cognitive mapping process that focusses on the IT services industry. The case study strategy enables enlarging the horizon of study beyond the context. The appreciation of every single opinion of ten professional pricing managers from different international IT companies serves to gain in-depth insights and a colourful bandwidth of perspectives. Criteria such as trustworthiness, systematicity, reflexivity, and transparency, in conjunction with a member-checking process assess the high research quality. Contribution: The findings and their interpretations uncover the objectives, the critical success factors, and the reciprocal dependencies of price-setting and price strategy. Recommendations for practical improvement like a versatile pricing manager role, a standardization of the IT service catalogue, a paradigm change in price-setting, and the proposition of a new four-category pricing model toolbox complete the ambition of reducing the theory-practice gap. Limitations: Limitations can arise through the number of research participants, their individual experience and temporal retrospection, and the complexity of cognitive mapping. Sector-specific findings cannot easily be transferred to other industries.
| Item Type: | Thesis (DBA) | |||||||||
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| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Pricing; Price strategy; Price-setting; IT services; Critical success factors; Interpretive research, Theory-practice gap; Cognitive mapping | |||||||||
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HF Commerce |
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| Divisions: | Schools and Research Institutes > School of Business, Computing and Social Sciences | |||||||||
| Research Priority Areas: | Applied Business & Technology | |||||||||
| Depositing User: | Susan Turner | |||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 22 Feb 2019 16:54 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 01 Aug 2021 21:45 | |||||||||
| URI: | https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/6542 |
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