Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13998

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Singh R.
Network connectedness of pharmaceutical sales rep (FLE)-physician dyad and physician prescription behaviour: A conceptual model
J Med Market 2008 Jun; 8:(3):257-268
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jmm/journal/v8/n3/abs/jmm200814a.html

Abstract:

Influencing physician prescription behaviour has always proven elusive for pharma companies. This is especially so in these changing times when physicians are tightly pressed for time to spare on attending to sales calls from pharma sales reps. Previous studies have examined physician prescription behaviour (PPB) as an impact of detailing activities of pharma salespersons (FLEs) and marketing mix variables deployed, with little emphasis on the network connectedness aspects of the physician–salesperson dyad, and its impact on the PPB. This paper aims to fill this gap. From a business networks perspective, a new conceptual model is proposed that incorporates three aspects of network connectedness resource transferability, activity complementarity and actor relationship generalisability as antecedents of PPB. The moderating effect of FLEs’ role ambiguity, which is a key intervening variable affecting sales performance, is also examined. The suggested propositions highlight the importance for pharma companies to leverage resources, bring complementarity in promotional activities and capitalise on the positive word-of-mouth references of physicians to increase the effectiveness of their salesforce in influencing physicians.

ramendras@iimahd.ernet.in

Keywords:
network connectedness, physician prescription behaviour, business networks, pharmaceutical sales rep, DTC advertising