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The objective of this study is to explore the structural attributes of the pharmaceutical industry before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic by examining the relationship between inventory and firm performance and developing a taxonomy of pharmaceutical firms based on the earns-turns matrix.

This study examines the inventory–firm performance linkage, considering both total inventory and its discrete inventory components in pharmaceutical firms. In addition, this research develops a new taxonomy of pharmaceutical firms based on the earns-turns matrix. A large panel dataset of firms in the US pharmaceutical industry was collected for the period 2000–2019.

The results reveal that strategic groups identified based on this taxonomy show different levels of profitability and inventory turns in the earns-turns matrix. Most pharmaceutical firms moved from the low-right to the top-left section in the earns-turns matrix, indicating that these firms have generally pursued profitability rather than effective inventory management.

This study explores the structural attributes of the pharmaceutical industry using the earns-turns matrix. This two-dimensional analysis may not, however, capture the full complexity of inventory–firm performance dynamics.

The mapping of strategic groups on the earns-turns matrix provides a useful tool for visual representations of the dynamics of strategic groups in terms of financial performance and inventory management performance. Practitioners can use the earns-turns matrix to benchmark their firm's position against their competitors.

This study broadens the scope of operations management research by introducing the earns-turns matrix as an empirical validation tool for operational and strategic management theories. This study emphasizes the effectiveness of the earns-turns matrix in analyzing strategic groups of pharmaceutical firms.

This paper aims to examine the consistencies and discrepancies in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting by analyzing the CSR reports of pharmaceutical companies. Despite the major role pharmaceutical companies play in the CSR field, our knowledge of the extent to which their disclosures provide comprehensive, material, credible and accurate information on their actual performances is limited because of a lack of sufficient literature on the CSR reporting practices of pharmaceutical companies.

The authors present a literature review that serves as the basis to develop the two key research questions: Do pharmaceutical companies publish comprehensive CSR reports? Are company reports that cover more material issues more comprehensive? Using the information on material CSR topics provided by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and CSR reporting quality scores by the CSR-Sustainability Monitor®, the authors analyzed the CSR reports of the world’s 15 leading pharmaceutical companies. A total of 11 material topics from SASB were mapped onto the corresponding contextual elements in the CSR-Sustainability Monitor. The Monitor evaluates CSR reports published by the world’s largest companies in terms of the degree of transparency and external verification of reporting.

The analyses revealed that while the pharmaceutical industry outperforms other industries in terms of the overall comprehensiveness of reporting, certain discrepancies exist among these companies in the content of their disclosures. Specifically, pharmaceutical companies beat the averages on multiple key CSR topics. However, while disclosures on mature areas such as environment and labor relations show some level of standardization, those focusing particularly on sensitive areas such as human rights and supply chain are far from being standardized. The authors also find that CSR reports that do not include all of SASB’s material topics are just as comprehensive as those that do. A detailed analysis of US and non-US companies separately further revealed that this result is valid for both groups of companies.

Considering the voluntary nature of CSR reporting, pharmaceutical companies still resort to selective disclosure techniques to highlight their achievements in areas where they feel more confident while leaving out others that can have potential negative consequences on the company. These results underscore the evolving nature of CSR reporting in the pharmaceutical industry and call for more attention and further investigation from managers and researchers alike.

The originality and value of the research show that despite its rapid growth and wide recognition by different segments of society and business as an effective and promising concept, CSR reporting has not yet reached a point where its expected benefits are realized. Focusing on the disclosure side of the story, this paper tries to identify the extent to which the pharmaceutical industry appropriately addresses increasing societal demand for enhanced transparency on its sustainable business policies and practices.

This paper investigates the impact of a monetary policy shock on the production of a sample of 312 industries in manufacturing, mining and utilities in the United States using a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) model.

The authors use a FAVAR model that builds on Bernanke et al. (2005) and Boivin et al. (2009). The main assumption in this model is that the dynamics of a large set of macro variables are captured by some observed and unobserved common factors. The unobserved factors are extracted from a large set of macroeconomic data. The key advantage of using this model is that it allows extracting the impulse responses of a wide range of macroeconomic variables to structural shocks in the federal funds rate.

The results indicate that industries exhibit differential responses to an unanticipated monetary policy tightening. In general, manufacturing industries appear to be more sensitive compared to mining, and utility industries and durable manufacturing industries are found to be more sensitive than those within nondurable and other manufacturing industries to a monetary policy shock. While all industries respond to the policy shock, most of the responses are reversed between 12 and 22 months.

The implication of our results is that monetary policy can be used to impact most US industries for four years and beyond. The existence of disparate responses across industries underscores the difficulty of implementing a monetary policy that will generate the same impact across industries. As the effects of the policy are distinct, policymakers may want to attend to the unique impacts and implement industry-specific policy.

The study is important in the context of the current challenges in the US economy caused by the spread of coronavirus. For example, to tackle the current pandemic, the researchers are trying to come up with cures for COVID-19. A considerable response of the chemical industry that provides materials to pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing to the monetary policy shock implies that an expansionary monetary policy may facilitate an invention and adequate supply of the cure later on. The same policy may not effectively stimulate production in apparel or leather product industries that are being hard hit by the pandemic.

The study contributes to the literature in broadly two aspects. First, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that investigates the impact of a monetary policy shock on a sample of 312 industries in manufacturing, mining and utilities in the US. Second, to identify structural shocks and investigate the effects of monetary policy shocks on economic activity, the authors diverge from the literature's traditional approach, i.e. the vector autoregression (VAR) method and use a FAVAR method. The FAVAR provides a comprehensive description of the impact of a monetary policy innovation on different industries.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the efficiency of US healthcare in an international context. The paper emphasizes the concept of efficiency and explores implications for pharmaceutical marketing.

Literature review, economic theory, secondary data and bivariate regression were used to describe and evaluate US healthcare spending and pharmaceutical marketing.

US healthcare spending is inordinately high as a share of gross domestic product within developed countries and this is associated with a relatively high share of private finance. But public sector finance is displacing private payment and this trend is especially pronounced for pharmaceuticals. Public finance combined with fiscal pressure can be expected to curb use of pharmaceutical detailing and other forms of marketing. The limits of affordability are not well assessed and socio‐economic institutions to facilitate decisions about present and future costs have yet to evolve.

This paper provides a macro perspective for healthcare finance and the marketing of pharmaceuticals. It pioneers analysis of economics and international healthcare systems integrated with the foundations of demand for pharmaceutical marketing.

This case looks at an important business task: forecasting a new product. The case can be used to teach finance, marketing (new product introduction), and healthcare strategy. The product is one of Amgen's most important new products: denosumab. On the surface, the case is fairly easy; students simply have to do some simple mathematical calculations. However, the challenges of forecasting quickly become apparent; every forecast depends on some critical assumptions, and the answer can vary dramatically.

Highlight the importance of forecasting as a business task. Give students the opportunity to create a forecast, using logical assumptions to generate an answer. Illustrate how dramatically forecasts can vary. Demonstrate why sensitivity analysis and customer understanding are both critical when trying to forecast a new product launch.

Pharmaceutical sales representatives (PSRs) have been shown to influence the prescribing patterns of physicians. Some of the blame has been shifted from physicians to PSRs due to perceived inadequacies in PSRs' education and certification. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature regarding the current certification requirements for PSRs, motivation for nationally standardized certification and the controversy surrounding pharmaceutical detailing impact on physicians' prescribing behavior.

Articles related to certification for PSRs were identified via searches of PubMed and IPA from inception to March 2011. Search terms included PSRs, PSRs certification, PSRs registration, PSRs education, and PSRs requirements. Articles describing the roles and responsibilities of PSRs, physician and public perception of PSRs, certification processes, and the future of PSRs' roles were included. An internet search was also performed to identify articles in the lay press related to this topic.

This paper shows that the certification for PSRs may become necessary, or even required, to help ensure that the prescribing patterns of physicians are not negatively affected due to false information coming from the PSRs. Therefore, ensuring that PSRs are well certified can lead to better health outcomes for patients. Although pharmaceutical companies do not require certification to gain employment as a sales representative, the certification provides a good knowledge base and insight into the industry.

The paper shows that appropriate training and certification of PSRs may be on the rise for this career path.

The over‐the‐counter (OTC) drug market is highly competitive, and consumer advertising is a prominent influence in OTC drug purchase and consumption. Given current marketplace conditions, it is important to summarize OTC drug advertising research. This paper aims to review the state of the public research literature on OTC drug advertising and provide a research agenda derived from the findings.

A literature review was conducted to identify the key themes in OTC drug advertising research and secondary data were collected about the regulation, nature, functions, and scope of OTC drug advertising.

Most pharmaceutical advertising studies have focused on prescription drugs, including the majority of direct‐to‐consumer advertising investigations. OTC drug advertising has received considerably less empirical attention. Since the mid‐1970s, only 24 OTC drug advertising studies have appeared sporadically in the literature. The cumulative findings are interesting and suggestive but dated, fragmented, and incomplete. Though research interest has waned, OTC drug markets and advertising spending have not. Advertising remains a prominent OTC drug purchase and consumption driver, likely spurred on by self‐medication and Rx‐to‐OTC drug switching. The state of the public research, the social and policy implications of self‐medication, and the growing OTC drug market signal that it is time to revisit OTC drug advertising content, processes, and effects.

The paper puts the subject of OTC drug advertising back on the radar of communication, advertising, and pharmaceutical marketing researchers and offers an agenda of research questions derived from the reviewed literature to guide and stimulate future studies.

In industrial markets, different players concur to diffuse the new products and services. However, in high-regulated industries, firms might find substantial limitations to their usual strategies. This paper aims to analyze the strategic marketing approaches adopted by firms to overcome these limitations.

The authors used a case study approach to explore the strategies adopted by two multinational health-care companies to promote their new products in the Italian health-care market.

The two firms adopted three specific strategic marketing approaches: educational activities for all the different players of the market with the involvement of highly reputed partners (e.g. opinion makers, scientific societies and patients’ associations); simulation of the innovation’s impact on the entire system realized; and creation of an ad hoc organizational unit, called market access unit, to deal with the specific issues of this highly regulated market.

The study contributes to the literature on marketing strategies aimed at promoting the diffusion of new products in highly regulated industrial markets by illustrating the strategic approaches that innovative firms can adopt to both achieve regulatory compliance and promote the diffusion of their new products.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an input-output life cycle assessment model to estimate the carbon footprint of US manufacturing sectors. To achieve this, the paper sets out the following objectives: develop a time series carbon footprint estimation model for US manufacturing sectors; analyze the annual and cumulative carbon footprint; analyze and identify the most carbon emitting and carbon intensive manufacturing industries in the last four decades; and analyze the supply chains of US manufacturing industries to help identify the most critical carbon emitting industries.

Initially, the economic input-output tables of US economy and carbon footprint multipliers were collected from EORA database (Lenzen et al., 2012). Then, economic input-output life cycle assessment models were developed to quantify the carbon footprint extents of the US manufacturing sectors between 1970 and 2011. The carbon footprint is assessed in metric tons of CO₂-equivalent, whereas the economic outputs were measured in million dollar economic activity.

The salient finding of this paper is that the carbon footprint stock has been increasing substantially over the last four decades. The steep growth in economic output unfortunately over-shadowed the potential benefits that were obtained from lower CO₂ intensities. Analysis of specific industry results indicate that the top five manufacturing sectors based on total carbon footprint share are “petroleum refineries,” “Animal (except poultry) slaughtering, rendering, and processing,” “Other basic organic chemical manufacturing,” “Motor vehicle parts manufacturing,” and “Iron and steel mills and ferroalloy manufacturing.”

This paper proposes a state-of-art time series input-output-based carbon footprint assessment for the US manufacturing industries considering direct (onsite) and indirect (supply chain) impacts. In addition, the paper provides carbon intensity and carbon stock variables that are assessed over time for each of the US manufacturing industries from a supply chain footprint perspective.

There is considerable variation in the extent of globalization across industries. The authors attempt to identify the structural conditions of the industry that lead to these variations.

Based on a sample of 33 manufacturing industries over the nine-year period from 2007 to 2016, the authors test for antecedents of industry globalization.

The authors find that industry globalization is positively affected by medium levels of barriers to entry, industry competition, industry assistance, low and mediums levels of capital intensity, industry concentration and industry regulation and negatively affected by low levels of technological change and industry assistance. In addition, the life cycle stage of the industry has an impact on the level of globalization with the growth stage having the highest level of globalization.

First, the major limitation of the paper is that the authors rely entirely on trade data to measure the level of industry globalization. The authors did not have a choice because foreign direct investment (FDI) data are available only at the country level. Second, given that globalization can occur at the country, industry and firm levels, the focus on industry-level structural characteristics alone may be seen as a limitation.

The results of the study can provide guidance to practicing managers to apply industry analysis for predicting the potential for and direction of globalization of their industries. This will enable them to formulate appropriate strategies to cope with global competition.

The study has important public policy implications. National governments have many levers at their command that can be used to influence the structural characteristics of industries, such as industry regulation, industry assistance and industry concentration. They can selectively use these levers to either facilitate or impede globalization.

Much of the empirical focus of prior research on globalization has been on countries, rather than industries, as the unit of analysis. There is clearly variation in the extent of globalization across industries with some industries highly integrated while others remain primarily local or regional. Based on a novel approach to measure the extent of globalization at the industry level, the authors identify its antecedents. The value of the paper lies in the fact that the analysis of 33 manufacturing industries over a ten-year period shows that the structural characteristics of the industries drive their extent of globalization.