Negative Consequences Of Positive Price Discrimination

Negative Consequences of
Positive Price Discrimination:

The role of price unfairness, disadvantaged price expectations and emotions

Master thesis

Abstract

Keywords: Advantaged price inequity, price discrimination, price unfairness, price expectations, repurchase intentions, guilt, pity, anger.

Table of contents
1. Introduction 4
2. Theoretical background 6
2.1 Price discrimination 6
2.2 Cognitive appraisal theory 8
2.3 Price unfairness perceptions 10
2.4 Price expectations 11
3. Conceptual framework and hypotheses 13
3.1 Cognitive stage 13
3.2 Affective stage 14
3.3 Conative stage 15
3.4 Manipulations 16
3.4.1 Relationship quality 17
3.4.2 Attribution of agency 18
4. Methodology 20
4.1 Research design 20
4.2 Measures 22
5. Data Analysis 24
5.1 Dependent variables 25
5.2 Manipulations 28
5.3 Additional analysis 29
6. Discussion 31
6.1 The cognitive stage/the influence on repurchase intentions. 31
6.1.1 Price unfairness perceptions 32
6.1.2 Disadvantaged price expectations 32
6.2 The role of emotions 33
6.3 Influence of manipulations 34
6.4 Gender influence 35
7. Conclusion 36
7.1 Theoretical contribution 36
7.2 Managerial implications 37
7.3 Limitations and further research 39
8. References 41
9. Appendix 45
1. INTRODUCTION
Price discrimination centres around firms charging customers differently based on several customer characteristics (Gelbrich, 2011). It allows firms to align their pricing with