IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v60y2014i3p586-605.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Relationship Organization and Price Delegation: An Experimental Study

Author

Listed:
  • Noah Lim

    (Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin--Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706)

  • Sung H. Ham

    (School of Business, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052)

Abstract

Price delegation to the salesforce is a practice widely adopted by firms. This paper examines the relationship between price delegation and managerial profits using a laboratory economics experiment. A novel feature of our experiment is that we study how varying the relationship organization of the sales manager and salesperson to allow for (1) requests by the salesperson for the manager to choose price delegation, and for (2) the manager to award a small bonus after observing the salesperson's decisions, can affect behavior. The results show that, contrary to the theoretical prediction, managers choose price delegation frequently and salespeople respond reciprocally, leading to higher manager profits under price delegation. Moreover, this behavior increases when requests and bonuses are allowed. We show that a behavioral economics model that incorporates positive reciprocity can explain these results well.Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2013.1778 . This paper was accepted by Pradeep Chintagunta, marketing.

Suggested Citation

  • Noah Lim & Sung H. Ham, 2014. "Relationship Organization and Price Delegation: An Experimental Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(3), pages 586-605, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:60:y:2014:i:3:p:586-605
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2013.1778
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2013.1778
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.2013.1778?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    2. Charness, Gary & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2003. "Promises & Partnership," Research Papers in Economics 2003:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    3. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gachter & Georg Kirchsteiger, 1997. "Reciprocity as a Contract Enforcement Device: Experimental Evidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(4), pages 833-860, July.
    4. Wilfred Amaldoss & Robert J. Meyer & Jagmohan S. Raju & Amnon Rapoport, 2000. "Collaborating to Compete," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(2), pages 105-126, November.
    5. Anne T. Coughlan & Subrata K. Sen, 1989. "Salesforce Compensation: Theory and Managerial Implications," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 8(4), pages 324-342.
    6. Ernst Fehr & Alexander Klein & Klaus M Schmidt, 2007. "Fairness and Contract Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(1), pages 121-154, January.
    7. Dugar, Subhasish, 2010. "Nonmonetary sanctions and rewards in an experimental coordination game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 377-386, March.
    8. Rajiv Lal, 1986. "Technical Note—Delegating Pricing Responsibility to the Salesforce," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 5(2), pages 159-168.
    9. David Besanko & Jean-Pierre Dubé & Sachin Gupta, 2003. "Competitive Price Discrimination Strategies in a Vertical Channel Using Aggregate Retail Data," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(9), pages 1121-1138, September.
    10. McKelvey Richard D. & Palfrey Thomas R., 1995. "Quantal Response Equilibria for Normal Form Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 6-38, July.
    11. Noah Lim & Teck-Hua Ho, 2007. "Designing Price Contracts for Boundedly Rational Customers: Does the Number of Blocks Matter?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(3), pages 312-326, 05-06.
    12. Gary Charness & Martin Dufwenberg, 2006. "Promises and Partnership," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1579-1601, November.
    13. Frenzen, Heiko & Hansen, Ann-Kristin & Krafft, Manfred & Mantrala, Murali K. & Schmidt, Simone, 2010. "Delegation of pricing authority to the sales force: An agency-theoretic perspective of its determinants and impact on performance," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 58-68.
    14. Christoph Vanberg, 2008. "Why Do People Keep Their Promises? An Experimental Test of Two Explanations -super-1," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(6), pages 1467-1480, November.
    15. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    16. Wilfred Amaldoss & Sanjay Jain, 2010. "Reference Groups and Product Line Decisions: An Experimental Investigation of Limited Editions and Product Proliferation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(4), pages 621-644, April.
    17. Birendra K. Mishra & Ashutosh Prasad, 2004. "Centralized Pricing Versus Delegating Pricing to the Salesforce Under Information Asymmetry," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(1), pages 21-27, January.
    18. Teck-Hua Ho & Juanjuan Zhang, 2008. "Designing Pricing Contracts for Boundedly Rational Customers: Does the Framing of the Fixed Fee Matter?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(4), pages 686-700, April.
    19. Pradeep Bhardwaj, 2001. "Delegating Pricing Decisions," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(2), pages 143-169, September.
    20. Charles B. Weinberg, 1975. "An Optimal Commission Plan for Salesmen's Control Over Price," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(8), pages 937-943, April.
    21. Robert Ridlon & Jiwoong Shin, 2013. "Favoring the Winner or Loser in Repeated Contests," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(5), pages 768-785, September.
    22. Min Ding & Jehoshua Eliashberg & Joel Huber & Ritesh Saini, 2005. "Emotional Bidders---An Analytical and Experimental Examination of Consumers' Behavior in a Priceline-Like Reverse Auction," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(3), pages 352-364, March.
    23. Hua Chen & Sung H. Ham & Noah Lim, 2011. "Designing Multiperson Tournaments with Asymmetric Contestants: An Experimental Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(5), pages 864-883, May.
    24. Ajay Kalra & Mengze Shi & Kannan Srinivasan, 2003. "Salesforce Compensation Scheme and Consumer Inferences," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(5), pages 655-672, May.
    25. Tony Haitao Cui & Jagmohan S. Raju & Z. John Zhang, 2007. "Fairness and Channel Coordination," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(8), pages 1303-1314, August.
    26. Birendra K. Mishra & Ashutosh Prasad, 2005. "Delegating Pricing Decisions in Competitive Markets with Symmetric and Asymmetric Information," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 490-497, March.
    27. Berg Joyce & Dickhaut John & McCabe Kevin, 1995. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 122-142, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sascha Alavi & Johannes Habel & Paolo Guenzi & Jan Wieseke, 2018. "The role of leadership in salespeople’s price negotiation behavior," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 703-724, July.
    2. Jiabin Wu, 2018. "Indirect higher order beliefs and cooperation," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(4), pages 858-876, December.
    3. Özalp Özer & Upender Subramanian & Yu Wang, 2018. "Information Sharing, Advice Provision, or Delegation: What Leads to Higher Trust and Trustworthiness?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(1), pages 474-493, January.
    4. Sandro Shelegia & Joshua Sherman, 2022. "Bargaining at Retail Stores: Evidence from Vienna," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(1), pages 27-36, January.
    5. Matthias Kräkel & Anja Schöttner, 2020. "Delegating Pricing Authority to Sales Agents: The Impact of Kickbacks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(6), pages 2686-2705, June.
    6. Liang Guo, 2022. "Testing the Role of Contextual Deliberation in the Compromise Effect," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(6), pages 4326-4355, June.
    7. Li, Xiaolin & Özer, Özalp & Subramanian, Upender, 2022. "Are we strategically naïve or guided by trust and trustworthiness in cheap-talk communication?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107103, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Sung H. Ham & Ingrid Koch & Noah Lim & Jiabin Wu, 2021. "Conflict of Interest in Third-Party Reviews: An Experimental Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(12), pages 7535-7559, December.
    9. Xiaolin Li & Özalp Özer & Upender Subramanian, 2022. "Are We Strategically Naïve or Guided by Trust and Trustworthiness in Cheap-Talk Communication?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(1), pages 376-398, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sung H. Ham & Ingrid Koch & Noah Lim & Jiabin Wu, 2021. "Conflict of Interest in Third-Party Reviews: An Experimental Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(12), pages 7535-7559, December.
    2. Keehyung Kim & Kevin Chung & Noah Lim, 2019. "Third-Party Reviews and Quality Provision," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 2695-2716, June.
    3. Faralla, Valeria & Borà, Guido & Innocenti, Alessandro & Novarese, Marco, 2020. "Promises in group decision making," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 1-11.
    4. Barmettler, Franziska & Fehr, Ernst & Zehnder, Christian, 2012. "Big experimenter is watching you! Anonymity and prosocial behavior in the laboratory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 17-34.
    5. repec:hal:wpaper:halshs-03620418 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Charness, Gary & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 3, pages 229-330, Elsevier.
    7. Attanasi, Giuseppe & Rimbaud, Claire & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2023. "Guilt aversion in (new) games: Does partners' payoff vulnerability matter?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 690-717.
    8. Boosey, Luke & Goerg, Sebastian, 2020. "The timing of discretionary bonuses – effort, signals, and reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 254-280.
    9. Peeters, Ronald & Vorsatz, Marc, 2021. "Simple guilt and cooperation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    10. Uwe Dulleck & Rudolf Kerschbamer & Matthias Sutter, 2009. "The Economics of Credence Goods: On the Role of Liability, Verifiability, Reputation and Competition," Working Papers 2009-03, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    11. Duncan Simester & Juanjuan Zhang, 2014. "Why Do Salespeople Spend So Much Time Lobbying for Low Prices?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(6), pages 796-808, November.
    12. Dijk, Oege & Holmén, Martin, 2017. "Charity, incentives, and performance," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 119-128.
    13. Toussaert, Séverine, 2017. "Intention-based reciprocity and signaling of intentions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 132-144.
    14. Jian Chen & He Huang & Liming Liu & Hongyan Xu, 2021. "Price Delegation or Not? The Effect of Heterogeneous Sales Agents," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(5), pages 1350-1364, May.
    15. Sandro Shelegia & Joshua Sherman, 2022. "Bargaining at Retail Stores: Evidence from Vienna," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(1), pages 27-36, January.
    16. Beck, Adrian & Kerschbamer, Rudolf & Qiu, Jianying & Sutter, Matthias, 2010. "Guilt from Promise-Breaking and Trust in Markets for Expert Services – Theory and Experiment," Working Papers in Economics 436, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    17. Robert Phillips & A. Serdar Şimşek & Garrett van Ryzin, 2015. "The Effectiveness of Field Price Discretion: Empirical Evidence from Auto Lending," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(8), pages 1741-1759, August.
    18. Giuseppe Attanasi & Claire Rimbaud & Marie-Claire Villeval, 2020. "Guilt Aversion in (New) Games: the Role of Vulnerability," GREDEG Working Papers 2020-15, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    19. Christoph H. Loch & Yaozhong Wu, 2008. "Social Preferences and Supply Chain Performance: An Experimental Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(11), pages 1835-1849, November.
    20. Charness, Gary & Du, Ninghua & Yang, Chun-Lei & Yao, Lan, 2013. "Promises in contract design," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 194-208.
    21. Vera Popva, 2010. "What renders financial advisors less treacherous? - On commissions and reciprocity -," Jena Economics Research Papers 2010-036, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:60:y:2014:i:3:p:586-605. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.