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Market Lett (2007) 18:181196
DOI 10.1007/s11002-007-9013-2
Received: 19 May 2006 / Accepted: 20 February 2007 / Published online: 13 March 2007 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007
Abstract The authors conducted a meta-analysis of study results on the price-perceived quality relationship published from 1989 to 2006. The findings show that the price effect on perceived quality has decreased. Furthermore, the pricequality relationship is stronger in studies that use a within-subjects design, investigate higher priced products, and use samples from European countries but weaker for services, durable goods, and respondents who are familiar with the product. A striking null result indicates that the number of cues does not affect the price-perceived quality relationship significantly.
Keywords Price-perceived quality relationship . Informational role of price . Meta-analysis
Marketing scholars and practitioners increasingly have recognized in recent decades that price provides an important marketplace cue (e.g., Gijsbrechts, 1993; Monroe, 2003) by indicating the amount of money consumers must sacrifice to satisfy their consumption needs. In this respect, price represents a financial burden, and higher prices negatively affect purchase probabilities (i.e., negative role of price; Erickson and Johansson, 1985). However, many consumers perceive price in a broader sense; according to theoretical and empirical evidence, they use price as a quality cue (e.g., Erickson and Johansson, 1985; Vlckner and Sattler, 2005). In their influential meta-analysis, which has been cited more than 131 times according to the Social Science Citation Index, Rao and Monroe (1989) summarized research findings regarding the price-perceived quality link and thus have provided the contemporary state of knowledge about the overall relationship between price and perceived quality. However, a single meta-analysis does not provide a final statement of truth (Tellis, 1988). Recently, Bijmolt et al. (2005) presented an update of Telliss(1988) meta-
F. Vlckner (*) : J. Hofmann
Institute of Marketing and Media, University of Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 5, 20146 Hamburg, Germanye-mail: [email protected]
The price-perceived quality relationship: A meta-analytic review and assessment of its determinants
Franziska Vlckner & Julian Hofmann
182 Market Lett (2007) 18:181196
analysis on the negative role of price, but an update of the positive role of price remains missing, although the relationship between price and perceived quality is one of the most commonly studied extrinsic cues in marketing (Miyazaki et al. 2005). Because...