8 Abstract Title: Marketing strategy of the Gigathlon Czech sport event Objectives: The main aim of this diploma thesis is to propose a marketing strategy that should lead to the increase in the number of participants of sport event Gigathlon Czech. This marketing strategy contains the individual elements of the communication and price strategy, from the point of view of creating the starting fee. Methods: Methods of expert sources, analysis, synthesis and comparison were used in the research and completion of the project. Primary and secondary data collection was used as a complement to these methods. The description of the professional resources can be found in the chapter called Theoretical Basis. Further research was carried out, analysis of the Swiss model, popularity of sports in the Czech Republic, analysis of participants of the sporting event Gigathlon Czech, analysis of the return of participants, competitive competitions and SWOT analysis.. Results: The result of this diploma thesis is a marketing plan that was compiled for the current year 2019 and contains proposals that could be applied to the years 2020 and 2021. It is composed of the main and partial steps. The main steps include the modification of the concept in the form of category extension and rise of the starting fee; these steps have...

This study examines how pioneer and follower pricing strategies affect the formation and evolution of reference price perceptions in new product categories. It contributes to our understanding of pricing new products by integrating two important research streams in the field of marketing - reference price theory and the theory of pioneer brand advantage. This is the first research to address reference price effects for radically new product categories. Prior research has focused solely on products in existing categories, typically in fast moving consumer goods categories. Using three experiments to causally establish the consequences of pioneer and follower pricing strategies on consumer perceptions, three critical research issues are addressed for the first time, consistent with calls for research in the literature: 1. Which reference price do consumers utilise in new product categories? 2. What is the role of consumer confidence in reference price for new product categories? 3. How do reference price perceptions form and evolve as a result of pioneer and follower pricing strategy? In the literature, a frequently cited issue is the fragmented operationalisation of reference price perceptions. With little theory to guide researchers in terms of which measures should be used, experiment 1 provides new theory, finding as hypothesised, that fair price perceptions as opposed to expected price perceptions are more likely to be evoked by consumers for new product categories. Experiment 1 also finds that using consumers' confidence in their reference price beliefs as an additional explanatory variable, does not improve over current reference price models. Overconfidence, a robust consumer behavioural phenomenon (Alba and Hutchinson 2000), might explain this result. Prior research has made several contributions to understanding reference price perceptions in established product categories. However, not much is known about how these reference price perceptions initially form and evolve. Experiments 2 and 3 address this gap by simulating an emerging market and examining the role of pioneership in shaping reference price perceptions. Experiment 2 found the pioneer, due to its perceptual prominence, is able to define the reference price and subsequently define perceptions of value. That is, the value consumers place on a product and their intentions to purchase the product are about the same whether the pioneer follows a penetration (initial low price) or skimming (initial high price) strategy. Experiment 3 extends experiment 2 by examining what happens in the emerging market when a follower brand enters. The follower enters at a large or small discount to the pioneer, and the pioneer completes its penetration or skimming strategy, converging to a 'regular' price. As predicted, the pioneer's initial price frames subsequent price and value perceptions, signifying the importance of the pioneer as a referent brand. Lower initial prices erode value perceptions, whereas higher initial prices substantiate value perceptions. The follower's pricing strategy does not have as much influence as the pioneer's pricing strategy. Other findings from experiment 3 related to reference price theory in general. Specifically, there was strong evidence of an averaging process when forming reference prices. This adds theory to the measurement debate about operationalising reference price as some past price such as last price paid or some average of past prices. Experiment 3 also provides a further measurement contribution by supporting the use of brand specific measures of reference price, rather than category based measures. More generally, because of the causal research design, this thesis provides strong evidence of the use of reference prices in consumer decision making: a key concern emphasised by one of the area's seminal articles (i.e., Kalyanaram and Winer 1995), which stresses the need to provide evidence that consumers actually use reference prices, and not just act as if they do.

This thesis consists of two parts. The first part includes two essays that deal with the pharmaceutical market, and one essay that looks at strategic incentives that arise in optimal treatment involving untried drugs. The second part, consisting of two essays, examines some implications of altruism. Part I: Two of the essays (joint with Mats Ekelund) are empirical studies of the pharmaceutical market in Sweden. We consider all New Chemical Entities (NCEs) introduced in Sweden between 1987 and 1997. In the first essay, we examine drug pricing in the price regulated Swedish market and compare the results with a previous study of the US market, where no such regulation exists. Similar to the US study, we find that relative launch prices are positively correlated with the degree of therapeutic advance. In contrast to the US study, the presence of substitutes has a negligible effect on both launch prices and price dynamics. In the second essay, we consider the empirical relation between therapeutic advance and market shares. We use a model of horizontal and vertical product differentiation to derive a hypothesis that is tested on the NCE data. Vertically differentiated drugs on average gain larger market shares and command higher prices than horizontally differentiated drugs. Moreover, as a general rule competing substitutes have less influence on the former than on the latter. In the third essay, we develop a simple model of strategic interaction in which two agents learn about a common payoff relevant parameter. The motivating example considers two physicians who choose between two treatments, one of which has an unknown success rate. The physicians learn about the unknown treatment by prescribing it (experimenting). We contrast two information scenarios, one in which the physicians can observe the outcomes of their own treatments only, and the other in which they also can observe the outcomes from the other physician’s treatments. The pure equilibria entail an efficient amount of experimentation in both scenarios. However, strong free riding effects arise in the latter case. These are likely to cause Pareto dominated outcomes in which learning is completely thwarted. Part II: The fourth essay (joint with Jörgen W. Weibull) examines the behavior on insurance markets in a large economy when individuals have altruistic concerns for others’ welfare. The main question we address is whether strategic incentives to free ride on others’ altruism can cause insurance market failure. We also study the interaction between altruism and the adverse selection effects that arise when there is asymmetric information about the individuals’ loss probabilities. We find that if the individuals differ in their risk, and if the individual risks are observable by insurers, the degree of altruism must be (perhaps unrealistically) high in order to cause market failure. A more complex pattern is found in the case of asymmetric information: low levels of altruism increase the number of equilibria (compared to the case without altruism), while high levels of altruism cause complete market failure. The fifth essay (joint with Magnus Johannesson) also considers behavior consistentwith preferences for others’ welfare. We are concerned with how subjects allocate moneybetween themselves and others in a dictator game experiment. Deviations from the standard game theoretic prediction of the outcome in this game have been observed in numerous experiments. One possible explanation for this behavior is that individuals have altruistic concerns for others; another explanation is that individuals are motivated by reciprocity. We perform a standard double blind procedure and another design in which anonymity is guaranteed between dictators and recipients, thus removing any remaining reciprocity from the standard procedure. We could not reject the null hypothesis of no difference between the experimental groups in the two procedures. We interpret this finding as evidence of other-regarding behavior not motivated by reciprocity. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2001

The aim of this study is to re-contextualize prior negotiation theory emanating from the field of communications in a unique contemporary setting. The research focuses on the Canadian residential telecommunications sector, where the dominant business model involves the use of a rather peculiar variable pricing strategy, which has compelled a proportion of consumers to adopt competitive negotiation strategies. Through a series of three focus groups, the project gleans insight into the participants’ experiences and perceptions of the telecommunications procurement process. Based on prior theoretical assumptions and on this original research, the study tests the appropriateness of descriptive phase models of negotiation in the Canadian telecommunications industry, providing a new dimension to the nascent body of academic research in this area.

The aim of this study is to re-contextualize prior negotiation theory emanating from the field of communications in a unique contemporary setting. The research focuses on the Canadian residential telecommunications sector, where the dominant business model involves the use of a rather peculiar variable pricing strategy, which has compelled a proportion of consumers to adopt competitive negotiation strategies. Through a series of three focus groups, the project gleans insight into the participants’ experiences and perceptions of the telecommunications procurement process. Based on prior theoretical assumptions and on this original research, the study tests the appropriateness of descriptive phase models of negotiation in the Canadian telecommunications industry, providing a new dimension to the nascent body of academic research in this area.

Revenue management is a concept aimed to maximize capacity utilization and through that maximize revenues. It originated in the airline industry in the 70’s and due to its effectiveness  quickly spread to other sectors of the service industry. Today it is used in several industries like hotels, television and radio broadcasters, and energy transition companies to name a few. Since revenue management was developed in and for the service industry, most studies on revenue management are done on the service industry, creating a rather large research cap. Recently this concept has spread to the manufacturing industry as well. Despite this, there is very limited research done on revenue management in the manufacturing industry. Therefore, this paper’s aim is to partially filling this research gap by studying capacity management and pricing strategies (two mechanisms of revenue management), and how they have been shaped when implemented in a manufacturing company. This paper was done with a case study done on a multinational manufacturing company, who recently implemented revenue management. Interviews were conducted with people in key positions with good insight to the usage of revenue management in this company. Some of the most important result was that in this manufacturing company it is not possible to nest capacity on a customer segment level. However, in this company nesting was done on a market level instead. Also the pricing strategy differed between the service industry theory and this company. Instead of having a dynamic price that changed the total price up or down to change demand, this company had more of a fixed total price, and instead added more features to the product, decreasing the profit margin. The conclusion was drawn that the industry characteristics of the manufacturing industry have forced a rather large modification of revenue management. However, since this was a qualitative case study, no generalizing conclusions for the entire manufacturing industry can be drawn.

The price variable is among the most powerful instruments in the arsenal of the executives to achieve entry deterrence objectives. There are two main pricing strategies that firms may use to defend against a competitive market entry. The first of these options, limit pricing (or entry deterring price), may be utilized prior to competitive entry. The second option, aggressive (predatory) pricing, may be executed post-entry. The effectiveness of both of these options is still controversial. For example, the Chicago School proponents argue that these strategies are anecdotal in nature. On the other hand, the rationality of such conduct has been reliably simulated by Post-Chicagoans in game theoretic settings. The potential contributions of the marketing discipline have been recognized and called upon to help resolve the conflict. With this dissertation, I attempt to shed light on the role that price plays in preemptive and post-entry market defense of firms. As such, the questions tackled include but are not limited to: how effective is price as an entry-deterrence tool; in conjunction with firm and market specific barriers to entry; and as a post-entry retaliation mechanism? What are the facilitating conditions for limit, aggressive (predatory), competitive and supra-competitive pricing? What are the (long-term) consequences of these strategies? Following a multi-disciplinary literature review, I present a dynamic process model and test my hypotheses in a key network industry the airline industry. Building upon the advantages of multiple methods a la triangulation, I find that both limit pricing and predatory pricing can serve as effective strategies for the incumbents market defense. Predatory use of pricing in network industries may diminish consumer welfare. Results also suggest that firm specific barriers have a more significant role in market defense than market specific barriers. Insights and frameworks based on the marketing philosophy are also presented with the hope of advancing the ongoing debate between the Chicago and Post-Chicago Schools of thought.

With rapid development of information technologies, especially the Internet technology, people can communicate more flexibly via various media, in which knowledge can be also shared. In gaining knowledge through the Internet, either digital content retrieval or inter-personal interaction, learning activities conducted on the Web are getting popular. This research has two main objectives. One is to develop incentive mechanisms to enhance the quantity and quality of information shared through peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. The other objective is to implement and evaluate the proposed mechanisms for inquiry-based learning on P2P networks. The pricing-like incentive mechanism is embedded on each peer to determine the price to share a document, to issue a question, and respond to a question. Through experiments, this study evaluates the effects on mitigating the free-riding problems and exchanging information through the P2P network. The results show the effectiveness of the incentive mechanisms for inquiry-based learning on P2P networks.

The aim of this study is to re-contextualize prior negotiation theory emanating from the field of communications in a unique contemporary setting. The research focuses on the Canadian residential telecommunications sector, where the dominant business model involves the use of a rather peculiar variable pricing strategy, which has compelled a proportion of consumers to adopt competitive negotiation strategies. Through a series of three focus groups, the project gleans insight into the participants’ experiences and perceptions of the telecommunications procurement process. Based on prior theoretical assumptions and on this original research, the study tests the appropriateness of descriptive phase models of negotiation in the Canadian telecommunications industry, providing a new dimension to the nascent body of academic research in this area.

The aim of this study is to re-contextualize prior negotiation theory emanating from the field of communications in a unique contemporary setting. The research focuses on the Canadian residential telecommunications sector, where the dominant business model involves the use of a rather peculiar variable pricing strategy, which has compelled a proportion of consumers to adopt competitive negotiation strategies. Through a series of three focus groups, the project gleans insight into the participants’ experiences and perceptions of the telecommunications procurement process. Based on prior theoretical assumptions and on this original research, the study tests the appropriateness of descriptive phase models of negotiation in the Canadian telecommunications industry, providing a new dimension to the nascent body of academic research in this area.