Marketing Strategy and Relationship Quality of Pharmaceutical Company from Pharmacists – A Survey of the Drug Store Pharmacists in Taichung

• Main Authors: CHEN, JIA-SHENG, 陳佳聖
• Other Authors: HSU, CHE-HAN
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/rx9zp5

碩士 === 中臺科技大學 === 醫療暨健康產業管理系碩士班 === 107 === As for the implementation of the policy on the separation of drug dispensing from medical practice since 1997 in Taiwan, patients can acquire medicine not only from hospitals but also from drug stores. Therefore, the relationship between pharmaceutical companies and pharmacists of drug store plays a significantly factor for their marketing strategies and operations. The purposes of this study were to investigate the current status, differences, correlations and influence factors of pharmacists toward relationship quality and marketing strategies on pharmaceutical companies. A cross-sectional survey with structured questionnaire was used in this study. The questionnaire was examined through reliability and validity tests. The questionnaire consists of background variables, attitudes to pharmaceutical marketing strategy and relationship quality by 5-points Likert scale. The participants in this study were 300 pharmacists from different drug stores in Taichung. The valid respondents were 282 and the recovery rate was 94%. We used SPSS 25.0 to analyze the data which included descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson’s correlation. Based on the results, there were significant differences in marital status (p<0.05); pharmacy type (p<0.01); age, education level and years of practice (p<0.001) in perception of pharmacists towards pharmaceutical marketing strategies. Besides, there were significant differences in pharmacy type (p<0.05); age and education level (p<0.01); years of practice (p<0.001) in relationship quality of pharmacists towards pharmaceutical company. The pharmaceutical marketing strategies between "trust" and "commitment" show a strong relationship in relationship qualities. Variables of “age” and “education level” were found effective indicators respectively to influence perception of pharmacists towards pharmaceutical marketing strategies, which represents 11.6% of the variation. Dimensions of “Trust” and “Commitment” were important factors to influence the relationship quality of pharmacists towards pharmaceutical companies which represents 55.4% of variation. Based on this research results we can propose several suggestions which are: the pharmacists who are under the age of 39, unmarried, post-graduate degree, less than 5 years of practice in chain pharmacy stores have more positive attitudes toward the pharmaceutical marketing strategy. The promotion of relationship quality can be performed by increasing trust and commitment between pharmacists and pharmaceutical companies as well as improving their satisfaction. In conclusion, pharmacist then can have more positive attitudes of toward marketing strategies of pharmaceutical companies. Key words: marketing strategy, relationship quality, pharmacist, pharmacy