A neural network approach to predicting price negotiation outcomes in business-to-business contexts

Price premiums are a key profit driver for long-term business relationships. For sellers in business-to-business (B2B) relationships, it is important to have appropriate strategies to negotiate price increases without trading off the relationships with their buyers. This paper aims to understand the...

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Main Authors: Moosmayer, Dirk C., Chong, Alain Yee Loong, Liu, Martin J., Schuppar, Bjoern
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47515/
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author Moosmayer, Dirk C.
Chong, Alain Yee Loong
Liu, Martin J.
Schuppar, Bjoern
author_facet Moosmayer, Dirk C.
Chong, Alain Yee Loong
Liu, Martin J.
Schuppar, Bjoern
author_sort Moosmayer, Dirk C.
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Price premiums are a key profit driver for long-term business relationships. For sellers in business-to-business (B2B) relationships, it is important to have appropriate strategies to negotiate price increases without trading off the relationships with their buyers. This paper aims to understand the annual price negotiation processes of companies by predicting whether a seller’s reservation price, target price, and initial offer positively affect the price negotiation outcome between the sellers and buyers. Data from 284 B2B relationships of a chemicals supplier based in Germany was used to examine our research model. In order to capture the non-linear decisions that are involved in price negotiations and to address collinearity among negotiations’ determinants, neural network analysis was used to predict the factors that influence price negotiation outcome. The neural network model was then compared with the results from regression analysis. Compared to regression analysis, the neural network has a lower standard error, and it showed that target price played a more important role in B2B price negotiations. The neural network was also able measure non-linear, non-compensatory decisions that are involved in price negotiations. The results imply that neural networks should be more widely used by researchers to address the threats that multi-collinearity poses. For companies, the results imply that price targets should be actively managed, e.g. through clear financial aims or through seminars aiming to help sales personnel to establish more challenging negotiation aims.
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spelling nottingham-475152020-05-04T16:37:21Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47515/ A neural network approach to predicting price negotiation outcomes in business-to-business contexts Moosmayer, Dirk C. Chong, Alain Yee Loong Liu, Martin J. Schuppar, Bjoern Price premiums are a key profit driver for long-term business relationships. For sellers in business-to-business (B2B) relationships, it is important to have appropriate strategies to negotiate price increases without trading off the relationships with their buyers. This paper aims to understand the annual price negotiation processes of companies by predicting whether a seller’s reservation price, target price, and initial offer positively affect the price negotiation outcome between the sellers and buyers. Data from 284 B2B relationships of a chemicals supplier based in Germany was used to examine our research model. In order to capture the non-linear decisions that are involved in price negotiations and to address collinearity among negotiations’ determinants, neural network analysis was used to predict the factors that influence price negotiation outcome. The neural network model was then compared with the results from regression analysis. Compared to regression analysis, the neural network has a lower standard error, and it showed that target price played a more important role in B2B price negotiations. The neural network was also able measure non-linear, non-compensatory decisions that are involved in price negotiations. The results imply that neural networks should be more widely used by researchers to address the threats that multi-collinearity poses. For companies, the results imply that price targets should be actively managed, e.g. through clear financial aims or through seminars aiming to help sales personnel to establish more challenging negotiation aims. Elsevier 2013-06-15 Article PeerReviewed Moosmayer, Dirk C., Chong, Alain Yee Loong, Liu, Martin J. and Schuppar, Bjoern (2013) A neural network approach to predicting price negotiation outcomes in business-to-business contexts. Expert Systems with Applications, 40 (8). pp. 3028-3035. ISSN 0957-4174 Business-to-business marketing; Price negotiation; Neural network; Regression analysis http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957417412012596 doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2012.12.018 doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2012.12.018
spellingShingle Business-to-business marketing; Price negotiation; Neural network; Regression analysis
Moosmayer, Dirk C.
Chong, Alain Yee Loong
Liu, Martin J.
Schuppar, Bjoern
A neural network approach to predicting price negotiation outcomes in business-to-business contexts
title A neural network approach to predicting price negotiation outcomes in business-to-business contexts
title_full A neural network approach to predicting price negotiation outcomes in business-to-business contexts
title_fullStr A neural network approach to predicting price negotiation outcomes in business-to-business contexts
title_full_unstemmed A neural network approach to predicting price negotiation outcomes in business-to-business contexts
title_short A neural network approach to predicting price negotiation outcomes in business-to-business contexts
title_sort neural network approach to predicting price negotiation outcomes in business-to-business contexts
topic Business-to-business marketing; Price negotiation; Neural network; Regression analysis
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47515/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47515/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47515/