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Institutional pharmaceutical services have widely evolved over the past 20‐30 years. Hospital pharmacy practice has changed from a profession concerned chiefly with the bulk preparation and distribution of drug products to one centred on ensuring optimal drug therapy. Whereas hospital pharmacists were charged with maintaining large drug stock on nursing units, many of them now provide individualised patient therapies. The practice of hospital pharmacy has therefore become one encompassing all aspects of drug therapy, from the procurement of drugs and drug delivery devices, their preparation and distribution, to their most appropriate selection and use for each patient. Hospital pharmacy services have traditionally had little involvement at the key stages in patients’ hospital care. This leads to the conclusion that the model of clinical pharmacy practice adopted by many pharmacy department hospitals is no longer appropriate for the demands of today’s health‐care services. Reviews many new models proposed for clinical pharmacy practice including an integrated model for providing a pharmaceutical care management approach in the health‐care system. This model is a response to the failures of traditional drug therapy. It is primarily an idea about how health professionals and patient should integrate their work to obtain outcomes important to patients and clinicians.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality of Tehran pharmacies' services and their impacts on the pharmaceutical firms, to highlight forces behind the current situation and suggest some improvements. This provides the means for pharmaceutical companies to differentiate themselves by quality of services, in the forefront of dealing with the customers, so‐called the last “touch point”.

After a comprehensive literature review, SERVQUAL model was chosen to be used in this study. A combination of quantitative and qualitative (integrative) methods was used for data collection and analysis. The quantitative data were gathered by questionnaires, including 22 pair items measuring expectation and perception, followed by qualitative data, including 32 in‐depth interviews. Furthermore, the views of our expert panel consisting of nine experts have been identical to the study. For statistical treatment of quantitative data, SPSS software was used.

The study reveals that Tehran community pharmacies are facing serious service quality problems. The results of quantitative data show negative gaps in perceptions and expectations of customers in all 22 SERQUAL statements and all dimensions: Information, Reliability, Empathy, Appearance and Time commitment. Comparatively, appearance dimension is ranked as the highest quality and the lowest rank belongs to information dimension. The findings show that the generic SERVQUAL scale does not properly measure the quality of pharmacies' services; therefore, the authors recommend an industry‐based scale; called PHARMA‐SERVQUAL. The findings show the reasons for low quality services are: low education of pharmacists' assistants, lack of proper regulation and control, pharmacies' economic problems and cost of quality improvement, the culture of blaming others and accusing pharmaceutical firms, government and social security organization. In short, pharmacists transfer their service problems to pharmaceutical firms, which have largely neglected this last touch point with the customer. The study also suggests some quality improvements and academic as well as managerial implications.

The study provides empirical evidence regarding the service quality of pharmacies in a developing country (Iran) and adds depth to the understanding of the reasons behind the quality problems. This research contributes to the understanding of how pharmacies' qualities of services enhance/change the customers' perception of the pharmaceutical companies' product qualities. It suggests that the firms should differentiate themselves at the pharmacies as the “last touch point” dealing with the end‐users. The study sheds light on the necessity of modifying the SERVQUAL items and dimensions to fit pharmacies' services.

The success ofIn recent years, there has been significant interest in the application of continuous quality improvement (CQI) and total quality management (TQM), and patient‐focused care (PFC) in health care organisations around the globe. The hospital industry has substantially embraced the concepts of CQI and TQM with the belief that these concepts and programmes will lead to an improvement in both the quality and efficiency with which health services are delivered. The objective of this article is to achieve better outcomes in health care services with fewer resources by studying the implementation of patient‐focused care in the health care provision context and particularly in the area of pharmaceutical care management as an integrated process in the delivery of health care in a hospital setting. The changes in health care provision have in many instances meant that the provision of pharmaceutical services needed re‐assessing.

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.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the services marketing literature by developing a scale based on Parasuraman’s SERVQUAL scale for the measurement of distributor perceived service quality at the distributor–manufacturer interface of the pharmaceutical supply chain.

Based on a literature review and discussions with experts, a questionnaire was designed basing on the widely used service quality measurement scale (SERVQUAL). Personal survey was conducted among selected distributors spread over three major cities of the Indian pharmaceutical market. The study used the exploratory factor analysis to identify the critical factors of service quality followed by the confirmatory factor analysis (AMOS 20).

A valid scale with four dimensions – (reliability, assurance, responsiveness and communication) and 13 items for measuring the distributor perceived service quality was developed which also satisfied all the reliability and validity tests. The findings of the present study indicate that distributor perceived service quality has an effect on satisfaction.

The proposed scale is an attempt to explore the less researched area. This study will give further insights to researchers to measure service quality at different phases of the pharmaceutical supply chain. The study is limited to three cities; it can be extended to other regions of the country. This study will be helpful to the practicing managers to measure the service quality and improve the performance in the pharmaceutical supply chain.

Service quality in pharmaceutical supply chain is very important, as it directly effects the health of the people, so the proposed scale can be used to control the quality of service.

The scale developed in this study can also be used for measuring distributor perceived service quality in other manufacturing sectors. This research provides direction and scope for further research to develop new concepts and models in measuring service quality in the supply chain.

The pharmaceutical industry is a high‐technology, high‐investment and high‐risk industry. It is also a highly competitive research‐based industry and a dedicated and demanding user of information. It follows that the industry is in the forefront of information science and information handling techniques which use the new information technologies, both with respect to handling internally generated data and externally published materials.

The purpose of this paper is to establish practical guidelines for benchmarking eight total quality management (TQM) practices vital to pharmaceutical companies’ performance. The paper also proposes the use of an analytic total quality index (TQI) as a benchmarking tool and illustrates the importance and effectiveness of this benchmarking methodology by applying it in two comparative studies of three Jordanian pharmaceutical companies.

In order to achieve the above-mentioned purpose, the data were gathered through a questionnaire that was used to evaluate the gap between the ideal and current status of the quality management system and distributed to the quality units from three companies: pharmaceutical manufacturing company, a pharmaceutical manufacturing company working in the same field and a pharmaceutical service providing research services to a pharmaceutical manufacturing companies. And the mean differences between the current and ideal states for the eight critical TQM practices were compared for these two comparative studies using the t-test.

Each of the two comparisons reveals statistically significant differences regarding the perceptions of actual and ideal scores for manufacturing and service companies on five out of eight critical factors and, on two out of eight critical factors for manufacturing and manufacturing companies.

The pharmaceutical companies, regardless of whether they are manufacturing or service company, can adopt benchmarking techniques which were applied in this case study to improve their performance and their product/service quality.

The consequences of this research can support organization managers and policy makers in effectively benchmarking the identified TQM practices in their organizations using the proposed TQI benchmarking tool.

This study aims to explore the dynamics enabling strategic account management (SAM) to function as a value co-creation selling model in the pharmaceutical industry.

Using an inductive qualitative research design, data are collected within 11 industry customers in Canada. This work focuses on hospitals as strategic accounts of pharmaceutical companies, exploring SAM value co-creation in the “hospital-pharmaceutical company” relationship.

The findings suggest the presence of two key dimensions that can enable a value co-creation SAM model in the hospital-pharmaceutical relationship: “customer-tailored value-added initiatives” and “relationship enhancers”. Customer-tailored value-added initiatives explain the activities that are central to the hospital-pharmaceutical company relationship and can lead to the provision of value added that is unique to the hospital. Relationship enhancers explain the activities that can help strengthen hospital-pharmaceutical company relations in the pursuit of enhanced value-added interactions between the two parties. The research demonstrates a cyclical relationship between “customer-tailored value-added initiatives” and “relationship enhancers”, leading to value co-creation through a SAM model.

The study informs pharmaceutical industry practitioners on how to improve their value proposition through new, more sustainable selling practices. It offers information on implementing a value co-creation SAM model, which can enable pharmaceutical companies to sustain long-lasting value-added relationships with key accounts such as hospitals.

The study contributes to the field of SAM by conceptualizing SAM as a value co-creation system. It introduces new knowledge in pharmaceutical marketing by offering empirical insight on the applicability and use of SAM in the hospital-pharmaceutical company dyad.

The aim of this paper is to report on the findings of a systematic literature review‐seeking to elicit existing evidence of the nature of organisational culture in community pharmacy organisations.

This review takes a novel approach to systematically identifying and synthesising the peer‐reviewed research literature pertaining to organisational culture in this setting, its antecedents and outcomes.

The review provides an overview of the scope of and research methods used in the identified literature, together with a narrative synthesis of its findings, framed within five dimensions of organisational culture: the professional‐business role dichotomy; workload, management style, social support and autonomy; professional culture; attitudes to change and innovation; and entrepreneurial orientation.

There is a need for more detailed and holistic exploration of organisational culture in community pharmacy, using a greater diversity of research methods and a greater focus on patient‐related outcomes.

This paper demonstrates that, whilst little research has explicitly investigated organisational culture in this context, there exists a range of evidence describing aspects of that culture, some of the environmental and organisational factors helping to shape it, and its impact on the pharmacy workforce, services delivered and business outcomes. It highlights the importance of the business‐professional role dichotomy in community pharmacy; the influence of individual pharmacists' characteristics and organisational setting; and the impact on pharmacists' wellbeing and job satisfaction and the services delivered. It provides less evidence of the impact of organisational culture on the quality and safety of service provision.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether and how much patients would be willing to pay for diabetes disease state management (DSM) services in community pharmacies, and also to determine the relationships between willingness to pay (WTP) and different clinical/socio/demographic characteristics of patients.

A sample of 130 diabetic patients recruited from 14 pharmacies across Sydney, Australia completed self‐administered questionnaires. SPSS 16.0 was used to assess WTP in four scenarios (50 and 100 percent improvement in diabetes control after a 30 minute initial and 30 minute follow‐up consultation, respectively). Descriptive and inferential statistical techniques (regression) were used to analyse data.

Patients are willing to pay a median of AUS$30 for 50 percent improvement and AUS$40 for 100 percent improvement per 30 minute initial consultation, and AUS$20 for 50 percent improvement and AUS$30 for 100 percent improvement per 30 minute follow‐up consultation. Although results varied across scenarios, WTP generally increased when: patients' income is greater than AUS$150,000; frequency of patients' diabetes‐related hospitalizations is between 2 and 4; and patients' perceptions of pharmacists' ability are higher. The remainder of the variables tested are not significantly associated with WTP.

The findings demonstrate that most patients are willing to pay for diabetes DSM services in community pharmacies, and there is a great opportunity for pharmacies to expand their clinical services in this area.

The key contribution to the literature is the data relating to the willingness of Australian diabetic patients to pay for pharmacy‐delivered disease management support, and how this varies across people with different clinical/socio/demographic characteristics.