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The objective of this work is to demonstrate the relationships between the two main processes of research and development (R&D) activities: the knowledge generation phase (KPP) and the knowledge commercialization, or transfer, phase (KCP), in a sector that is intensive in this type of activity, such as the pharmaceutical sector. In addition, within the framework of the general objective of this work, the authors propose two other objectives: (1) make advances in network efficiency measurement models, and (2) determine the factors associated with efficiency in the KPP and in the KCP in companies of the pharmaceutical sector in Spain.

A Network Data Envelopment Analysis (NDEA) model (Färe and Grosskopf, 2000) with categorical variables (Lee et al., 2020; Yeh and Chang, 2020) has been applied, and a sensitivity analysis of the obtained results has been performed through a DEA model of categorical variables, in accordance with the work of Banker and Morey (1986), to corroborate the results of the proposed model. The sample is made up of 77 companies in the pharmaceutical sector in Spain.

The results obtained point to a greater efficiency of pharmaceutical companies in the KPP, rather than in the KCP. Furthermore, the study finds that 1) alliances between companies have been the accelerating factors of efficiency in the KCP (but patents have slowed this down the most); 2) the quality of R&D and the number of R&D personnel are the factors that most affect efficiency in the KPP; and 3) the quality of R&D again, the benefits obtained and the position in the market are the factors that most affect efficiency in the KCP.

The authors have not found studies that show whether the efficiency obtained by R&D-intensive companies in the KPP phase is related to better results in terms of efficiency in the KCP phase. No papers have been found that analyse the role of alliances between R&D-intensive companies and patents, as agents that facilitate efficiency in the KCP phase, covering the gap in the research on both problems. Notwithstanding, this work opens up a research path which is related to the improvement of network efficiency models (since it includes categorical variables) and the assessment of the opinions of those who are responsible for R&D departments; it can be applied to decision-making on the aspects to improve efficiency in R&D-intensive companies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and review the available literature on ethical/unethical behaviour of pharmaceutical companies and to determine the ethical issues, unethical behaviour by analysing, summarising and categorising the factors related to these issues and unethical behaviour as were studied during the period 2008-2017. Essentially, this paper presents a critical analysis of the available literature on the subject and avenues for future research.

This paper adopted the systematic review approach to achieve the purpose of this study and examines the most relevant literature from online existing database sources, available between 2008-2017 by using the keyword search method. Then studies are categorised and summarised, using previously developed theories and frameworks, which have provided evidence to the universal consensus that ethical behavioural outcomes are dependent on the interplay of individual, organisational and environmental factors and have reordered to fulfil the purpose.

The findings identify that ethical issues related to pharmaceutical companies as were studied during the period 2008-2017 are drug pricing, drug safety and gift-giving. The organisational variables appeared to be the dominant cause of these ethical issues and unethical practices along with other determinants such as environmental and stakeholders. A large number of studies were in the western country context. Theoretical research has studied more comparatively empirical studies.

This review provides insights for understanding the ethical issues, unethical behaviour and determinants related to these issues of pharmaceutical companies and provides insights where the literature is standing. This review only includes studies between 2008-2017, which are related to the ethical issue of pharmaceutical companies, therefore, the view is only of the past 10 years papers. This review provides gaps and insight into the source of ideas for future research and will help the researchers in guiding ethics-related information in the context of pharmaceutical companies.

This study will help the practitioners and policymakers in informing about the issues that required the urgent need to solve and will shed some light to focus and formulate strategies for successful competitive advantage. This study will help researchers who are seeking information related to ethics and ethical behaviour in pharmaceutical companies.

To the best of my knowledge, this review of understanding ethical/unethical behaviour in pharmaceutical companies of the past 10 years between 2008-2017 has not been done to date. This study is filling the gap by bringing all the information about ethics in pharmaceutical companies at one place, which works as an index of ethics-related study in this specific pharmaceutical company context.

This paper aims to review the progression of the pharmaceutical industry through the lens of government legislation in the USA. The goal of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of pharmaceutical marketing practices while providing direction for emerging pricing and promotional approaches.

This paper offers a comprehensive review of pharmaceutical marketing practices through an exhaustive review of the literature. Further, suggestions are made based on emerging marketing techniques found in the literature.

Changes in government legislation will continue to play a significant role in promotional activities of the pharmaceutical industry. This study identifies specific pricing and promotional tools the pharmaceutical industry can use in response to these emerging changes. Specific actions such as enhancing public image, reconfiguring sales forces, outsourcing and optimizing the pricing mix are suggested.

This paper presents clear guidelines for managers by affording applicable practical tools to offset changes posed by government legislation.

This paper seeks to fill a gap in research surrounding pricing and promotion in the pharmaceutical industry. Further, this paper offers concrete pricing and promotional approaches for pharmaceutical management.

The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to determine if pharmaceutical companies can be grouped based on their espoused values, and second, to examine the relationship between these values and company reputation.

A descriptive study design is used with two separate analyses: cluster analysis for grouping the companies; and descriptive data analysis for determining cluster differences.

The findings suggest that there are three value clusters: competent, community and interpersonal, with the community group showing the highest relative reputation, and the interpersonal cluster as the lowest. Brand portfolio composition appears to positively contribute to reputation. The effect of portfolio specialization is based on a company’s closeness to its therapeutic community, which may be influenced by the outward characteristics of its values.

Future research should examine the longitudinal effects of values on reputation combined with case studies.

Regardless of cluster classification, all firms should develop strong ties with their therapeutic communities using both personal and digital/omnichannel strategies.

A company’s values are becoming an important consideration for all customers and stakeholders.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to systematically examine the activities of leading pharmaceutical firms to link a specific value cluster to company reputation.

This research paper aims to investigate the impact of pharmaceutical marketing on the prescription behavior of physicians. It further examines whether the use of various promotional techniques including advertisements, sales promotions, personal selling and direct marketing by pharmaceutical companies influences the prescription behavior of doctors. Based on the increasing ethical concerns regarding the promotion of specific drugs for personal gains, the research also investigated the moderating role of ethical ideology in the above relationship.

To accomplish the research goals, quantitative research methods were used. Using the online questionnaire, data were collected from 93 doctors working in government and private hospitals in Pakistan, and structural equation modeling technique was used to analyze the impact of pharmaceutical marketing techniques on the prescription decisions of physicians.

The findings suggested that marketing strategies of pharmaceutical companies positively influences the prescription behavior of doctors. Further, physicians having weak ethical standards are likely to be strongly influenced by the marketing and promotional practices of companies.

The research is pivotal in understanding the perspective of doctors and the ethical considerations that need to be addressed while devising the marketing campaigns by pharmaceutical companies. Further, these findings provide important implications regarding the essential linkage between ethical values and the development of right marketing tools.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is one of the first few to empirically develop and test the role of moral values followed by physicians when they take prescription decisions. Based on the findings, future researchers are encouraged to further investigate the need of setting boundaries for pharmaceutical companies and restricting their usage regarding the promotional tactics.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the intellectual capital (IC) reporting practices of the Bangladeshi pharmaceutical industry, one of the most significant industries to the Bangladeshi economy. It investigates the extent and qualitative characteristics of IC disclosures made by listed pharmaceutical companies in Bangladesh.

Data are gathered through a content analysis of the 2006 annual reports of 16 pharmaceutical companies quoted on the Dhaka Stock Exchange. The content analysis is performed by IC topic (i.e. categories and subcategories) and three semantic properties of IC disclosure: first, format (i.e. discursive, numerical but non-monetary, numerical-monetary and visual); second, news-tenor (i.e. positive, neutral and negative); and three, time-orientation (i.e. forward-looking, non-time-specific and past-oriented).

Results suggest a clear awareness among the Bangladeshi pharmaceutical companies of the significance of IC in corporate value creation and a commitment to publicly communicating IC. Some evidence is found of the need to manage stakeholder relationships, and legitimacy and impression management motives underpinning the management's desire to disclose IC. Also, proprietary cost theory explains the variation in the disclosure of types of IC. The Bangladeshi pharmaceutical companies did not adopt a consistent framework for IC reporting. A lack of consistency in reporting IC was also evident as the extent and subcategories of IC disclosures varied among companies. The findings indicate the Bangladeshi pharmaceutical companies may not have properly measured and managed their IC.

There are two main limitations specific to this study. First, it only provides a snapshot of IC disclosure practices of Bangladeshi pharmaceutical companies in 2006. Changes may have taken place since then that would have affected the IC-intensity and IC utilisation of these entities. Second, the study's sample is limited due to its focus on one industry. However, it is representative of the population as it includes more than two-thirds of Bangladeshi pharmaceutical companies. This limitation affects the ability to conduct statistically meaningful analyses for testing any hypotheses relating to IC disclosure.

This is the first study on IC reporting practices of Bangladeshi pharmaceutical companies. Unlike most prior studies on IC disclosure practices, this study measures the quality of disclosures by analysing their semantic properties. The paper highlights the need for building organisational competencies in managing, measuring and reporting IC in Bangladesh.

The current paper explores the effect of private market characteristics on the access of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to public markets in some sectors. Using survey data of small and medium enterprises in the pharmaceutical sector in Egypt, we confirmed this effect. We found that regulations of drugs pricing and registration in the private market constrained the capacity of those firms to compete in the public markets. However, some other factors play it the other way. The policy implications of these findings indicate that governments need to account for private markets characteristics when designing support packages for smaller enterprises in public procurement markets.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a scale for the measurement of service quality at the manufacturer–doctor interface of the pharmaceutical supply chain and to study the impact of service quality on doctor’s satisfaction and doctor’s prescribing behavior. Doctors from two major states of South India were selected for the study. A doctor perceived service quality scale with three dimensions having eight items was developed through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in the pharmaceutical context. Structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was used to show the relationship between service quality, satisfaction and prescribing behavior. The critical factors of service quality were identified, and a model was developed showing the relationship between service quality, doctor’s satisfaction and doctor’s prescribing behavior which has not been explored in any research. This model will be helpful in further development of new concepts and for analyzing the reasons for the failure of doctors in providing quality service. 

A total of 200 doctors from three major cities of South India were selected. A doctor perceived service quality scale with three dimensions having eight items was developed through CFA using Parasuraman Service quality scale (Parasuraman, 1985, 1986, 1988) as the basis in the pharmaceutical context after focus group discussions with company experts, retailers, doctors and academicians. SEM technique was used to examine the impact of service quality on doctor’s satisfaction and prescribing behavior.

There is no universal set of dimensions and items that determine service quality in manufacturing industries, especially at the manufacturer–doctor interface of the pharmaceutical supply chain though service quality plays a very important role in affecting the performance of manufacturing industries. The critical factors affecting the quality of service for a pharmaceutical company at the manufacturer–doctor interface of the supply chain were identified, and its impact on doctor’s satisfaction and their prescribing behavior were studied.

This research contributes to the development of service quality scale for measuring service quality in pharmaceutical manufacturing company, especially with reference to manufacturer–doctor interface of the supply chain which was not thoroughly explored earlier. A model was developed showing the positive relationship between service quality and doctor’s satisfaction and doctor’s prescribing behavior in pharmaceutical supply chain which is a new concept not proved experimentally.

The study is very useful for the pharmaceutical manufacturing companies to identify the service quality factors affecting doctor’s satisfaction and their prescribing behavior thereby leading to development of new measures for improving the performance of the pharmaceutical supply chain. This study can lead to identification of problems involved in pharmaceutical supply chain and also leads to generation of new ideas and development of new concepts for influencing doctor’s satisfaction and doctor’s prescribing behavior which in turn can help in providing better health.

This study actually has a direct impact on the society. If factors affecting doctor’s satisfaction and prescribing behavior are identified automatically, the end consumer, i.e. patient, can be satisfied in a better way, and better medical care can be provided. If doctor’s problems are identified, then better solutions can be provided to patients; this in turn has a lot of positive impact on the pharmaceutical company and society in general.

This research will act as a base for generating ideas relating to how quality service provided by a company will have an impact on doctor’s satisfaction and his prescribing behavior in pharmaceutical supply chain .To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind of the conceptual aspects of service quality, satisfaction and loyalty explained in terms of pharmaceutical supply chain as service quality, doctor’s satisfaction and doctor’s prescribing behavior and proved experimentally.

This paper examines the behaviour of Japanese pharmaceutical corporations in the light of recent merger activity, questioning strategic momentum theory given the particularly significant influence of culture on the decision‐making process in this market. The international performance of Japan’s pharmaceutical industry has been poor; therefore, we examine the regional orientation of the top global pharmaceutical TNCs, inquiring as to why there has not been greater convergence among Triad countries. Irrespective of cultural differences, this industry has been slow to respond to international macro change, but mergers, acquisitions, and other convergence strategies are now being observed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the practice, prevention, and problems pharmaceutical companies face with respect to crisis management (CM). The pharmaceutical sector is considered to be the most crisis prone of all industries.

The study is exploratory in nature and data were collected by carrying out semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with key managers in 16 pharmaceutical companies. The open‐ended questions were content analyzed.

Respondents identified product recall as the major reason for business crisis in pharmaceutical companies. Also, the results revealed that the large‐sized companies had CM departments or had collaborated with consulting firms.

This is a limited exploratory study restricted to one country. However, Greece's pharmaceutical expenditure is above the average in OECD countries. Suggestions are presented for future studies and especially for generalization of the findings.

Today's business environment requires a robust, enterprise‐wide plan to deal with crises, especially in pharmaceutical companies where a “mistake” can lead to civilian casualties.

This study offers empirical findings from pharmaceutical companies, where studies are limited and broadly confirms the findings and conclusions of earlier studies in other industries in the international context.