CALL FOR PAPERS
The Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management
Special issue on
Learning and Educating
in Pricing and Revenue Management
Guest Editors:
Dr. Carmen Balan (The Bucharest University of Economic Studies) and Dr. Stephan Liozu (Chatham
University)
Background
In June 2017, a special issue of the Journal of Revenue & Pricing Management will publish a series
of papers on learning and educating in pricing and revenue management. The members of the
scientific and practicing communities are invited to submit abstracts by 1st November 2015, in order
to be considered for publication. Pricing evolved into a major tool for generating value to customers
and shareholders, as well as for increasing competitiveness in the marketplace whereas Revenue
Management has emerged as a significant domain of practice and research for managing demand.
Today, Revenue Management education is now a mainstream subject in hospitality management
education programs but is still a relative new field compared to marketing, decision making or human
resources management. This learning and educating perspective revenue management deserve more
attention from practitioners, teachers and researchers.
At least four reasons support this statement.
Firstly, company success is influenced by the effectiveness of pricing and revenue management. The
ability of companies to price their products better than competitors depends on the managerial skills
of price setting and price getting (Hinterhuber & Liozu, 2012). Success in revenue management is
related to education and continuous training programs (Skugge, 2004).
Secondly, formal business education and training programs relative to pricing and revenue
management are still far from reaching the maximum level of extensive development. A survey among
institutions providing AACSB-accredited undergraduate business programs revealed that only 3.9%
of the schools had a marketing course dedicated to pricing topics and 9.1% offered a marketing course
that addressed pricing besides other topics (McCaskey & Brady, 2007). Such data show a great
improvement potential for the benefit of both future pricing decision-makers and companies. According
to the findings of an online survey among 487 revenue management professionals (of which 78% were
from the hotel industry), training seems to be no investment priority for many respondents. If given a
hypothetical unlimited amount of money, only 16.2% of respondents were most likely to invest in
training (Kimes, 2011). Such data underline the need to reconsider the importance of university
education and training programs focused on pricing and revenue management.
Thirdly, gaps existed in terms of revenue management application among the various service
industries. Hotels took a slower start compared to airlines, car rental companies and cruise lines.
Under the impact of the recent economic downturn in the global economy, hotels became more
inclined to apply advanced revenue management techniques. The reasons for this attitude are the
following: focus on the operating performance of the properties, emergence of third-party online
distributors (Booking.com, Travelocity etc.), integration of the revenue management programs with the
large customer databases generated by customer loyalty programs; new information technology
solutions available for the hospitality industry (Mainzer, 2004).
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Ultimately, the focus of the special issue of the journal on learning and educating in revenue
management is based on the future challenges that will be faced by companies and decision-makers.
On one side, experts anticipate that pricing profession will be marked by critical elements such as:
advancements in information technology; pricing becoming an integral component of the marketing
curriculum; enhanced innovation in pricing theories, experimentation and training tools; increased
professionalism; creation of C-suite positions like chief pricing officer and chief value officer (Mitchell,
2012). Learning and educating should be an integral part of the evolution of the pricing profession. On
the other side, practitioners and researchers in revenue management have to further identify potential
solutions to: (i) expand the implementation of revenue management in non-traditional fields of
application such as hospitality, transportation and subscription services, besides the traditional
industries like airlines, hotels and car rental; (ii) capitalize on the rapid development of Internet, ecommerce and online auctions; (iii) rethink revenue management under the impact of competition and
collaboration within the alliance networks; (iv) ameliorate the performance of forecasts in revenue
management (Chiang, Chen & Xu, X., 2007). Pricing and revenue models are also evolving (Ng,
2010). Learning and educating in revenue management may contribute to meeting these challenges
and turning into value the development opportunities.
In this context, learning and educating are critical to the effective pricing and revenue management.
Nevertheless, they were sparsely addressed. A research direction in this field has not emerged yet.
This special issue aims to be a springboard for a more thorough analysis of the topic. Both researchers
and practitioners are invited to contribute and share their knowledge and experience related to the
subject of this special issue.
The contributions may consist in academic papers, practitioner’s papers and case studies. The
selection of papers will be based on criteria among which range the focus on the subject of the special
issue, the relevance of the methodological approach of the research, the systematic presentation of
the findings and of their importance for companies.
Areas of interest
The major areas and the research questions recommended to contributors are the following:
a) Assessment of performance in pricing and revenue management:
How do companies assess the level of performance in pricing and revenue management? What
types of indicators are used and what types of behaviours are encouraged/rewarded (by industries
such as hospitality, transportation etc.)? What shifts in the assessment of performance in pricing
and revenue management took place lately? What factors generated/contributed to those shifts?
What potential shifts may be foreseen or would be necessary relative to the future assessment of
performance in pricing and revenue management?
b) Knowledge and skills of the most effective pricing and revenue managers/decision-makers:
Which is the profile of the most successful/effective pricing and revenue managers/decisionmakers? What knowledge and categories of skills should these managers/decision-makers have
by types of industries (hospitality, transportation etc.)? Are there any significant gaps between the
knowledge and skills of the “ideal” pricing and revenue managers/decision-makers and the present
knowledge and skills of these managers/decision-makers? Are there any differences between the
knowledge and skills required from a pricing manager/decision-maker and the knowledge and
skills required from a revenue manager/decision-maker?
c) Impact of education on performance in pricing and revenue management:
How is education correlated with the performance levels presently achieved by pricing and
revenue managers/decision-makers? How is education correlated with the performance of the
firm? What types of education have the managers/decision-makers that achieve the highest
performance levels? What education methods/tools are more effective for the development of what
types of knowledge and skills relative to pricing and revenue management?
d) Process of continuous learning relative to pricing and revenue management:
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How do companies support/encourage continuous learning relative to pricing and revenue
management? Do practices differ by industry (hospitality, transportation etc.)? What factors impact
the effectiveness of the learning process? What types of learning experiences/methods are the
most effective in developing the knowledge and skills relative to pricing and revenue
management? How can the new information technology solutions help the continuous learning
relative to pricing and revenue management? How will the decision automation solutions influence
the learning process? What state-of-the-art methods/tools may be applied to assess and enhance
the level of learning relative to pricing and revenue management?
e) Impact of learning on performance in pricing and revenue management:
What methods/tools may companies use to measure the impact of learning on the performance
levels in pricing and revenue management? Which are the state-of-the-art methods/tools? Do they
differ by industry (hospitality, transportation etc.)? How is learning correlated with the performance
levels achieved in pricing and revenue management (as regards the individual performance of the
managers/decision-makers and the performance of the firm)? What impact do the different types
of learning experiences have on performance in pricing and revenue management? How do
companies track the evolution of performance in pricing and revenue management under the
impact of continuous learning?
Other relevant aspects suggested by the potential contributors are welcome.
Submission of abstracts
Abstracts should be submitted
sliozu@chatham.edu.
simultaneously
to
both
carmen.balan@mk.ase.ro
and
The title line of the e-mail must be labelled as follows: JRPM – Learning and Educating in Pricing and
Revenue Management.
The abstracts should have no more than 400 words and include the following:
a) title of the proposed paper (essential)
b) contributing authors and contact details (essential)
c) purpose of proposal (essential)
d) main findings (if appropriate)
e) research methodology (if appropriate)
f) theoretical contribution (if appropriate)
g) type of paper (i.e., research, practitioner etc.)
h) utility value for practitioners or industry (essential)
i) five key words.
Details about the journal and author guidelines can be found at http://www.palgravejournals.com/rpm/index.htm .
Deadlines:
Abstract proposal:
Paper submissions:
Feedback to authors:
Final papers:
Publication:
1st November 2015
1st April 2016
15th June 2016
1st October 2016
June 2017
References
Chiang, W.-C., Chen, J.C.H. & Xu, X. (2007). An overview of research on revenue management:
Current issues and future research. International Journal of Revenue Management, 1(1), 97–128.
Hinterhuber, A. & Liozu, S. (2012). Is It Time to Rethink Your Pricing Strategy?, MIT Sloan
Management Review, 53(4), 69-77.
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Kimes, S.E. (2011). The future of hotel revenue management. Journal of Revenue and Pricing
Management, 10(1), 62-72.
Mainzer, B.W. (2004). Future of Revenue Management: Fast forward for hospitality revenue
management. Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, 3(3), 285-289.
McCaskey, P.H. & Brady, D.L. (2007). The current status of course offerings in pricing in the business
curriculum. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 16(5), 358-361.
Mitchell, K. (2012). The Next Frontier of the Pricing Profession. In: A. Hinterhuber & S. Liozu, eds.,
2012. Innovation in Pricing: Contemporary Theories and Best Practices, Taylor & Francis. Ch. 27, 403409.
Ng, I.C.L. (2010). The Future of Pricing and Revenue Models. Journal of Revenue and Pricing
Management, 9(3), 276-281.
Skugge, G. (2004). Growing Effective Revenue Managers. Journal of Revenue and Pricing
Management, 3(1), 49-61.
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