The Role of Value-Informed Pricing in Market-Oriented Product Innovation Management Ingenbleek Paul T. M.; Frambach Ruud T.; Verhallen Theo M. M. JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT DEC 2010 (Web of Science)
Although the positive effect of a market orientation on new product success is widely
accepted and the market orientation literature has increased its understanding of how a market
orientation leads to performance, the extant literature has overlooked the role of value-informed
pricing in the relationship. Value-informed pricing is a pricing practice in which the decision
makers base the price of the new product on the customers' perceptions of the benefits that the
product offers and how these benefits are traded by customers against the price (that has yet to be
determined). Considering that pricing mistakes may hit hard on the profitability of product
innovations, it is important to firms to have a good understanding of its role. This study develops a
framework in which value-informed pricing is integrated in the relationship between market
orientation and new product performance. A distinction is made between customer and competitor
orientations, and relative product advantage is also included in the conceptual model. The model is
tested on data obtained from managers based on a cross sectional sample of 144 firms. The
respondents were involved in a decision-making process of the pricing of a new product. The model
is tested using structural equations modeling. The results show that value-informed pricing has a
strong effect on new product performance. It also reveals that each component of a market
orientation fulfills a specific role in a market-oriented organization. Value-informed pricing is
found to have important mediating effects in the market orientation-new product performance
relationship. Results show that firms with a strong customer orientation engage in value-informed
pricing and develop superior benefits to customers in an advantageous product. In turn, both value-
informed pricing and relative product advantage positively affect new product market performance.
However, no significant effect of competitor orientation on value-informed pricing is found.
Combined with the finding that competitor orientation negatively affects relative product advantage,
this suggests that competitor orientation may hurt new product performance when this orientation is
not balanced with a strong customer orientation. The results also portray that value-informed
pricing leads to higher product advantage. Interestingly, this relation is contingent on the degree of
interfunctional coordination within the firm. This suggests that the relationship between market
orientation and new product performance is strongest if firms integrate value-informed pricing in
the new product development process. In this sense, a market-oriented firm mirrors the customer
value perception that makes a trade-off between benefits and price.