The purpose of this article is to assess managers' evaluation of risk associated with applicable uncontrollable forces when developing pricing strategies.
The present study is based on attribution theory. An experiment using more than 100 business managers was conducted to assess the perceived risk of uncontrollable environmental factors.
The findings suggest that when uncontrollable environmental factors dominate pricing managers tend to select pricing strategies with external orientations to deflect risk away from themselves personally.
This research is limited to pricing strategies and not a broader selection of marketing strategies. The present research provides greater insight as to why managers make certain strategic pricing decisions.
This paper suggests management should frame decision‐making contexts so that minimizing personal exposure is consistent with corporate goals and objectives.
This paper is an extension of previous research examining the managers' perception of risk. In particular, this paper focuses on how managers examine/evaluate risk and how that impacts their decision‐making process when selecting pricing strategies.
