The Pricing Decision in the Micro-Business: A Study of Accountants, Builders and Printers

This paper is based on research involving 55 semi-structured interviews with owner-managers of microbusinesses. The purpose of the study was to determine what factors ownermanagers take into account when they are making their pricing decisions. Previous research suggests that both small and large-scale organisations predominantly adopt a cost-plus approach to pricing, making reference to the 'market' when deciding on the level of mark-up. As such, most of the research has focused on economic determinants of pricing. This study, however, found that non-economic factors played an important role in the way ownermanagers made their pricing decisions. Indeed, the way individuals make decisions relates to a complex interrelated combination of factors. This paper develops a theory of pricing that takes into account the individual, social and economic context of pricing in the micro-business.