Evidências de isomorfismo na formação do preço em empresas de micro e pequeno porte da região do grande abc paulista

Abstract

Managers are always looking for innovation for their companies, but are often pressured to behave in a certain way, on account of an existing law, an established standard or seeking acceptance / legitimation. In this paper, we sought to identify and analyze the formation of sales price with the managers and verify the isomorphism evidence in the practices adopted in micro and small businesses in the region of Grande ABC Paulista. Since sales price is a vital decision for businesses regardless of size, area of focus, location or age, as there are several factors that influence this process and some different methods can be used to define it. It is a descriptive and quali-quantitative research, whose data were collected in two stages. In the first stage, in-depth interviews were conducted with nine managers of these businesses. The content analysis to was applied to the interpretation of the findings, seeking subsidies for the sequence of the investigation. It was possible to perceive that there is no pattern in the pricing process among the interviewees. About 50% reported having a logical process, and other 50% more intuitive; all the managers participating in the interviews stated that they were attentive to the market reaction on their price, consider mainly the price of their competitors and its own cost structure, but assign diferente degrees of importance. After conducting the interviews, the 122 questionnaires have applied to managers of micro and small business in Grande ABC Paulista region. It was verified that researched managers are aware of the strategic importance of pricing strategic, and the most most used pricing method among micro and small business in Grande ABC Paulista region is mixed sales price method, and it was possible to verify that there is isomorphism evidence in this process, especially the mimetic mechanism, despite haven’t appear in a strong and explicit way.