The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of prestige sensitivity on mobile phone customer’s price acceptance in Vietnam and the mediating role of product knowledge and price mavenism on this relationship. | Journal of Economics and Development, , , April 2018, pp. 97-112 ISSN 1859 0020 The Effect of Prestige Sensitivity on Price Acceptance in Vietnam’s Mobile Phone Market Nguyen Thi Huyen Pham Van Dong University, Vietnam Email: huyenpdu@ Nguyen Minh Ngoc National Economics University, Vietnam Email: ngocieds@ Received: 18 October 2017 | Revised: 18 December 2017 | Accepted: 27 Febuary 2018 Abstract The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of prestige sensitivity on mobile phone customer’s price acceptance in Vietnam and the mediating role of product knowledge and price mavenism on this relationship. We used the convenience sampling method for data collection via questionnaires with a sample of 605 consumers who purchased mobile phones. The collected data was analysed by applying a structural equation modelling method. The result indicates that prestige sensitivity has both direct and indirect effects on price acceptance via product knowledge and price mavenism. The findings suggest that prestige sensitivity can be used as a market segmentation criterion for mobile phones when making price decisions and providing customers with adequate information could improve price acceptance. Keywords: Mobile phone; prestige sensitivity; price acceptance; price mavenism; product knowledge. JEL code: D12. Journal of Economics and Development 97 Vol. 20, , April 2018 1. Introduction Monroe (1990) defines price acceptance as the level of willlingness to pay for a product, reflecting responses of customers to product prices. The existing research indicates the mechanism through which individual differences affect price acceptance. Lichtenstein et al. (1988) found effects of product involvement and price consciousness on variation in the encoding of price (representing price-quality inferences) and price acceptance. They assumed that customers’ knowledge is low, so they focused on price-quality inference to explain the indirect effect .
