Despite understanding that price wars should be avoided and consensus among the pricing managers in our study, there remains a high reported incidence of price wars. The literature is silent about what factors lead well-educated pricing managers into price wars despite their desire to avoid them. This qualitative inquiry involved semi-structured interviews with 25 pricing managers across five industries. Our findings confirm that pricing managers have a strong desire to avoid price wars and confirm that pricing managers frequently blame competitors for aggressive pricing action. Additionally, we identify several common characteristics among the study participants. Pricing managers do not recognize value adjusted price competition as a price war. Pricing managers modify the definition of a price war in order to ensure their own actions and circumstances do not fit their definition of a price war. Finally, practitioners lack a widely accepted definition of price war.

尽管了解到应该避免价格战，并且在我们的研究中价格管理人员之间达成了共识，但仍然有很多关于价格战的报道。尽管有什么因素导致受过良好教育的价格经理想要避免价格战，但文献中却没有提及。这项定性查询涉及对五个行业的25位定价经理的半结构化访谈。我们的发现证实，定价经理强烈希望避免价格战，并确认定价经理经常将积极的定价行为归咎于竞争对手。此外，我们确定了研究参与者之间的几个共同特征。定价经理不认为价值调整后的价格竞争是价格战。定价经理会修改价格战的定义，以确保他们自己的行为和情况不符合他们对价格战的定义。最后，从业者缺乏被广泛接受的价格战定义。