Gender differences in the response to unfair prices: a cross‐country analysis

Abstract

PurposeThe research questions are whether there is a difference in how men and women respond to unfair prices and, if so, whether this gender difference extends across national cultures. Is the difference due to nature or to nurture? This paper aims to answer these questions.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses scenarios to conduct a survey‐based analysis of the effects of gender and country on responses to personally and socially unfair prices.FindingsThe results indicate that the response to price unfairness is due more to nurture than to nature. Although American females tend to be more sensitive than men to price unfairness, there is little or no difference between men and women in Germany and South Korea: both sexes there react negatively to an unfair price, particularly when the seller has acted unjustly.Practical implicationsIn the USA, the gender difference in response to unfair prices suggests that different pricing tactics should be used for men than for women. However, since males in South Korea and Germany are just as sensitive as females to unfair prices, pricing tactics acceptable to American men may not work in other countries.Originality/valueThis paper takes a look at the manner in which a price increase for a frequently purchased but essential product is viewed as unfair. The paper examines the issue in three contrasting countries – Germany, South Korea and the USA – to determine if any observed differences are universal or culture‐specific.

Unfairness in consumer services: Outcomes of differential treatment of new and existing clients

“…boycotts, complaints or negative wordof-mouth. Finally, though the experimental approach is widely used in similar studies (Guiltinan, 2006), has long been recommended for fairness research (Maxwell et al, 2009) and reduces bias , it suffers from questionable external validity; future research could focus on real life situations instead of experimental scenarios in assessing unfairness perceptions.…”

“…Along the lines of previous research on price fairness (e.g., Bolton et al, 2003;Grewal et al, 2004;Tsai and Lee, 2007;Maxwell et al, 2009), we used a survey-based experimental design approach. The experimental method employed a 2 Â 2 betweensubjects factorial design, where subjects were divided in two segments, new and existing customers, and were presented with two hypothetical scenarios, one under the advantaged inequality condition and the other under the disadvantaged inequality condition.…”

“…Grewal et al (2004) argue that pricing tactics contrary to the social norm, such as charging a regular customer more, engender less trust than pricing tactics consistent with norms, especially benevolence trust (Garbarino and Maxwell, 2010). Firms that fail to meet these social expectations are often accused of exploiting the consumer and are treated with suspicion (Maxwell et al, 2009). Current customers may respond more negatively to norm violation due to their higher sense of betrayal (Grégoire and Fisher, 2008).…”

“…Price remains one of the least researched areas of marketing (Hoffman et al, 2002). A "fair" price is defined as a price that is both reasonable" and just (Maxwell et al, 2009). Price unfairness exists when a customer assesses a seller's price as unreasonable, unacceptable or unjustifiable (Xia et al, 2004).…”

“…Social norms are tacitly understood rules of a society. Society expects a price to be paid for adhering to the social norms of equity, equality, and need (Maxwell et al, 2009). E.g.…”