Sheri Perelli

Mindful pricing: transforming organizations through value-based pricing

We address the following paradox: most scholars consider value-based pricing as superior to cost- and competition-based approaches in industrial markets – yet, few firms use it. Semi-structured interviews with 44 managers of small to medium size US industrial firms revealed key characteristics that are common to the firms who successfully implement value-based pricing: the ability to face deep transformational change, the role of champions as transformational leaders, the creation and diffusion of organizational mindfulness, the building of organizational confidence to fuel the transformation, and the design of center-led and specialized teams of experts supporting the firms pricing process. Our data demonstrate that value-based pricing is not simply adopted but internalized through a long and purposeful process supported by a mindful, experiential, and transformative learning environment.

Industrial Pricing Orientation: The Organizational Transformation to Value-Based Pricing

Of three main orientations to pricing in industrial markets − cost-based, competition-based and customer value-based − most marketing and pricing scholars consider the latter superior – but few firms use it. The literature is silent about how organizational and behavioral characteristics of industrial firms may affect pricing orientation and, more specifically, value-based pricing. Semi-structured interviews with 44 managers of small to medium size U.S. industrial firms yielded insights into firm pricing orientations, processes and decision making patterns. We identified five organizational characteristics common to firms implementing value-based pricing: ability to effect deep transformational change, presence of a champion, skill in diffusing organizational capabilities, organizational confidence, and center-led pricing process specialization. Our data demonstrates that value-based pricing is not simply adopted but internalized through a long, tenuous and deep transformation process supported by an experiential and transformative learning environment.

First and foremost, physicians: the clinical versus leadership identities of physician leaders

Purpose - Physicians are commonly promoted into administrative and managerial roles in US hospitals on the basis of clinical expertise and often lack the skills, training or inclination to lead. Several studies have sought to identify factors associated with effective physician leadership, yet we know little about how physician leaders themselves construe their roles. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach - Phenomenological interviews were performed with 25 physicians at three organizational levels with physicians affiliated or employed by four hospitals within one health care organization in the USA between August and September 2010. A rigorous comparative methodology of data collection and analysis was employed, including the construction of analytic codes for the data and its categorization based on emergent ideas and themes that are not preconceived and logically deduced hypotheses, which is characteristic of grounded theory. Findings - These interviews reveal differences in how part- vs full-time physician leaders understand and value leadership roles vs clinical roles, claim leadership status, and identify as physician leaders on individual, relational and organizational basis. Research limitations/implications - Although the physicians in the sample were affiliated with four community hospitals, all of them were part of a single not-for-profit health care system in one geographical locale. Practical implications - These findings may be of interest to hospital administrators and boards seeking deeper commitment and higher performance from physician leaders, as well as assist physicians in transitioning into a leadership role. Social implications - This work points to a broader and more fundamental need - a modified mindset about the nature and value of physician leadership. Originality/value - This study is unique in the exploration of the nature of physician leadership from the perspective of the physician on an individual, peer and organizational level in the creation of their own leadership identity.

Making Sense When It Matters Most: An Exploratory Study of Leadership In Extremis:

Leading in in extremis situations, when lives are in peril, remains one of the least addressed areas of leadership research. Little is known about how leaders make sense in these dangerous situations and communicate these contexts to others. Because most of the literature on in extremis is theoretical, we sought empirical evidence of how sensemaking proceeds in practice. A qualitative study was conducted based on interviews with 30 Army leaders who had recently led teams in combat. Our findings suggest that during these life-threatening situations, sensemaking and sensegiving are actually occurring simultaneously, the type of training leaders receive is critical, and a sense of duty can influence a person’s role as a leader. Our findings have implications for both theory and practice since crisis leadership is now a coveted executive quality for leadership competency.

Stretching role breadth: Overachieving IT managers in underperforming IT organizations

We addressed both the well documented perception that information technology (IT) organizations fail to maximize returns on the significant investments firms make in them - and the paucity of empirical evidence about how IT professionals contribute to the problem . We focused on people, seeking to shed light on the competencies of professionals overseeing or executing IT projects in three multinational firms operating in North America in distinctly different industries. Our findings revealed differences between two tiers of IT professionals - individual contributors (ICs ) and managers -appraised by their organizations as achieving two levels of performance - average and superior. Results demonstrate that technical ability, the basis on which most IT professionals are promoted, is trumped by role based self efficacy as a predictor of IT role effectiveness. Our findings may help firms to select and promote people best suited to manage and contribute to IT organizations.

Firm Pricing Orientation And Pricing Decisions In Industrial Markets

Of three main orientations to pricing in industrial markets - cost-based, competition-based and customer value-based - most marketing and pricing scholars consider the latter superior - but few firms use it. The literature is silent about how organizational and behavioral characteristics of industrial firms may affect pricing orientation and, more specifically, how managers integrate cost, competitive and value information in their decision-making process. Semi-structured interviews with 44 managers of small to medium size U.S. industrial firms yielded insights into firm pricing orientations, processes and decision making patterns. We identified the organizational characteristics influencing the pricing decision making process: the existence and locus of a pricing function in the organization; firm’s ability to diffuse organizational capabilities, and center-led pricing process specialization. Our data demonstrates that pricing orientation in firms strongly influence the decision-making process. The adoption and internalization of a modem pricing orientation such as value-based pricing requires a long, tenuous and deep transformation process supported by experiential and transformative learning.