Pricing Strategy: An Interdisciplinary Approach [Hardcover]

Morris Engelson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Pricing Strategy, number 21 in Great Books List for 1999, is a must read for engineers working in product development. -- IEEE, Engineering Management, Winter, 1999

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Joint Management Strategy (April 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0964287064
• ISBN-13: 978-0964287068
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,585,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars ....Not worth the money relative to alternative texts...., September 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Pricing Strategy: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Hardcover)

I teach pricing strategy at a business school and have read nearly all pricing books published in the past 20 years. Morris Engelson's textbook, "Pricing Strategy: An Interdisciplinary Approach," is helpful in the fact that it is interdisciplinary in focus. However, many topics are only touched upon rather than discussed in depth. I was also disappointed in the fact that few consumer behavior theories were woven and integrated into specific pricing strategies. How and why do consumers respond to certain pricing strategies in certain way? Engelson fails to address this issue. The textbook appears to have been written by relying solely on lecture notes, and, for the most part, is a very dry read. It's definitely elementary in its presentation - and would only be of use for someone who has never been exposed to pricing from either a applied or theoretical sense. I did not adopt this textbook for my course. Instead, I would recommend that any college professor, student, or company manager to purchase Nagle and Holden's "Strategy and Tactics of Pricing." Another book better than Engelson's is Dolan and Simon's "Power Pricing."

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars good as an elementary text, but simplistic and narrow, October 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Pricing Strategy: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Hardcover)

not at all bad as a way to get your feet half damp in pricing theory. Engelson depicts pricing and markets as if they were commodities, thus his models are out growths of commodity pricing models . If this were the case, life (an pricing) would be a lot simpler, and probably a lot less interesting. However, this isn't the way the real world works. Reality is full of discontinuities and irrational (or semi rational) behavior that a person in business who intends to survive has to think about. Engleson acknowledges some of these difficulties, and then begs off, saying the discussion of such topics is too broad, or too deep. Could be, but Engleson could put more grit and insight into this book, such as case studies and comparisons across different industries. The pricing problems in the retail clothing industry, the automotive industry, and the software industry would be fascinating, and valuable, to see compared. So would issues of product differentiation, where two premium products each have an exclusive technology that offers different, but very desirable benefits. His chapter on Strategy reads like a high school textbook: c'mon, "Planning,Thinking,Act,Strategic,Behavior" !, this kind of dumbed down language is truly insulting to the intelligence. How about discussing some real strategy in action ? Like the tradeoffs of removing intermediaries in distribution channels ? Or the effects of increased or decreased regulation ? The best and worst thing that can be said about Pricing Strategy is that it is mediocrity at its most mediocre, and Mr. Engleson, mediocrity may have cut it twenty years ago, but the world has changed greatly since then. Get with it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lacks focus!, June 24, 2004

By 

Pras (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pricing Strategy: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Hardcover)

I went ahead to buy this book even though it has some substandard reviews simply because I wasnt looking for an overly complicated academic text on pricing. I graduated with a degree in economics and even though I dont consider myself a hard core economist I really felt that this text was bare bones. The first 4 chapters go on and on about what devising strategy entails and Engelson uses such 'dumbed' down english; its almost insulting to anyone in business. The examples are too brief and lack analytical rigor.

Some templates and graphs in chapter 5 were useful but whats up with a section on famous quotes? Seems like Engelson ran out of things to add to his book. This book is so short you can read it in one hour...dont waste 30 bucks on this one...go with KOTLER or Nagle