Pricing in a service sector context: Accounting and marketing logics in Irish hotel industry
Mattimoe, RuthORCID: 0000-0003-3744-779X and Seal, Will
(2011)
Pricing in a service sector context: Accounting and marketing logics in Irish hotel industry.
European Accounting Review, 20
(2).
pp. 355-388.
ISSN 0963-8180
Accounting texts usually argue that empirical evidence shows that costbased pricing decision rules tend to predominate in practice. The assumption is that accounting data on costs will be routinely available while market data are both unreliable and costly to obtain. This paper argues that such a view is unduly accounting-centric and that in some industries, especially in the service sector where the role of accountants is historically limited, a marketing approach is actually more prevalent and it is cost data that are both scarce and unreliable. Some case study evidence from the Irish Hotel industry is presented which suggests that the pricing decision is an institutionally-influenced outcome of tensions between accounting and marketing logics.