The Impact of Service Deregulation on Buyers' Reliance of a Market-Based Reference Price: A Test in a B2B Insurance Context.

For decades, there has been a growing trend toward deregulation in services industries. What deregulation means for buyer behavior remains a relatively unexplored area of research. This article focuses on price deregulation within services and examines how the change from a regulated to a deregulated pricing environment will moderate the extent to which service buyers use a market-based reference price (MBRP) when forming price perceptions. Competing expectations are developed and then empirically tested in a commercial insurance context. The results suggest deregulation increases the impact of a MBRP. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the findings from a theoretical, managerial, and public policy perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]