Editorial

Citation

Mukherjee, A. (2007), "Editorial", International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing, Vol. 1 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijphm.2007.32401aaa.001

Editorial

About the EditorAvinandan Mukherjee is a Professor of Marketing at the School of Business in Montclair State University, New Jersey, USA. Before joining Montclair State, Dr Mukherjee has taught at Penn State University (USA), University of Bradford (UK), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), and Indian Institute of Management (India). Dr Mukherjee's research interests include pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing, services marketing, and retailing. He has authored more than 50 articles in refereed journals, conference proceedings, and edited books. His research has appeared in the Journal of Retailing, Journal of the Operational Research Society, Service Industries Journal, Communications of the ACM, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, International Journal of Advertising, International Journal of Bank Marketing, etc. Dr Mukherjee has been guest editor for European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Services Marketing, and International Studies of Management and Organization, editorial board member of the Journal of Asia Pacific Marketing and the Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, and ad hoc reviewer for a variety of journals.

Launching the International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing

Welcome to the inaugural issue of the International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing (IJPHM). It is with a great deal of enthusiasm and optimism that I welcome readers to this issue. Health is becoming a pressing issue for societies, governments, and organizations in this century. The healthcare and pharmaceutical sector comprises an ever-increasing percentage of the GDPs of most countries and is projected to grow further in importance with the aging of much of the world population. Many developed countries spend 10-20 percent of their GDPs on health. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the annual increase in per capita spending on health across its member countries has surpassed overall economic growth by approximately 70 percent over the past three decades. Large emerging countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China are also struggling to improve their healthcare systems to match their economic growth. From the management point of view, this sector is not only important but also very challenging, with multiple stakeholders, conflicting objectives and inherent trade-offs. Challenges emerge from the structure and nature of competition in the pharmaceutical industry, and its marketing strategies including innovation and new drug development, FDA requirements, product management, pricing, promotions and advertising, sales force management, and retail channels. The healthcare field is characterized by the unique roles played by consumers, health care professionals, pharmacists, drug manufacturers, hospitals, clinics, government agencies, health insurers and other stakeholders in this field. Healthcare is on a collision course with patient needs and economic reality (Porter and Tiesberg, 2006). A complex mosaic of market, economic, social, political and regulatory forces shapes this dynamic sector, where application of marketing and management theories, strategies, and techniques can lead to creation of superior patient value.

Marketing concepts are critical to the professionalism of the health sector. The pharmaceutical and healthcare sector is increasingly realizing the importance of marketing principles and concepts. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA created the National Center for Health Marketing in 2004 to focus its efforts in the emerging field of health marketing. Similarly, the National Health Service (NHS) of the UK now values the role of marketing to understand patient needs and to provide reliable information so that patients, and their health professionals, can make informed choices about where to receive treatment. There are several factors that fuel the importance of marketing in healthcare. Marketing concepts like new product development, service quality, and customer satisfaction applied well to this sector can improve the lives of millions. Governments regulate as well as promote marketing in this sector leading to interesting public policy debates. Issues ranging from quality, efficiency, access, and cost-effective provision to the economics of prevention and the incentives for innovation in healthcare will shape the future competitiveness of organizations, governments, and nations. The availability of research funding and research databases also makes this sector conducive for sustained inquiry. Most importantly, this sector has unique characteristics, such as radical innovations in life sciences, blockbuster investments, complex distribution and payment channels, residual ambiguity, promotional challenges, public policy implications, social marketing, and low new product success rates. These characteristics give birth to unique marketing challenges.

No wonder, applying the marketing concept in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector has recently caught the attention of scholars and practitioners alike. Pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing is developing as an area of serious academic inquiry and study within marketing. However, marketing theory as applied to this sector currently remains relatively under-explored. While research on pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing is essential to building a critical body of knowledge in this emerging discipline, a disproportionately small attention has been devoted to this sector in marketing research. The purpose of this new journal is to bridge this gap, and to advance our theoretical and empirical understanding of marketing pharmaceutical products and healthcare services. Ever since the discontinuance of the erstwhile Journal of Health Care Marketing, there has been a discernible paucity of good scholarly publishing outlets in this area. As marketing of health promises to become a very fruitful area of research, now is the ideal time for the launch of IJPHM to serve as an outlet for publishing state-of-the-art academic research in the marketing of pharmaceutical and healthcare products in a sector that is critical to the global economy.

IJPHM is a double-blind peer reviewed research journal dedicated to advancing our theoretical and empirical understanding of marketing pharmaceutical products and healthcare services. The journal is a leading specialist reference resource of academic information and analysis, highlighting cutting edge research, new concepts and theories, and fresh practical ideas and initiatives that can be readily applied in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. The journal invites research that is theory-based, method-based, or problem solving-based, in the form of empirical studies, conceptual papers, case studies, practitioner perspectives, and book reviews. We welcome both qualitative and quantitative research, as well as post-modernistic, relativistic and positivistic approaches to scientific investigations. Scholars with diverse backgrounds (modeling, strategy and behavior) are encouraged to submit papers. A wide variety of topics will be suitable for this journal including, but is not limited to: strategic issues, marketing mix issues, new product development and technology issues, healthcare systems and recent developments, public policy and macro-marketing issues, performance issues, consumer behavior, international and globalization issues, value chain analysis, managing marketing systems, and service marketing issues. A detailed description of these topics and more information is provided on the journal web site: www.emeraldinsight.com/ijphm.htm

The journal aims to improve the practice of marketing and management in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector by publishing research that apply relevant theories and use appropriate scientific methods. In the process, the journal hopes to become an innovative practice reference that would supply pharmaceutical company management as well as healthcare service providers and managers with insights, techniques and strategies to retain their competitiveness and best satisfy their customers.

This journal has four unique attributes, all of which contribute towards making it an eclectic journal:

(1) This journal is the first of its kind that combines issues of healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, as these are intrinsically linked in policy, perspectives, and operations.

(2) By focusing on the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector, this journal explores issues of both physical goods marketing (pharmaceutical products) and services marketing (healthcare). The sector includes everything from pharmaceuticals to all aspects of health sciences, medical devices, health insurance, life sciences and biotechnology, nursing, ambulatory care, health supplements, and a host of other participating agents.

(3) This journal attempts to combine rigour and relevance by integrating theory and practice in its approach. While academic rigour is achieved through theoretical contributions, practical relevance remains a necessary yardstick for selection of papers in the journal.

(4) This journal brings together perspectives from business (marketing, management and strategy) and science (pharmacy, medicine, bio and life sciences) and thus contributes to society.

The journal is targeted at academics and practitioners interested in pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing and management. This journal will interest teachers and researchers who are willing to share their latest research, keep up with the latest research, or seek classroom examples and case studies. This includes not only marketing scholars but also management, strategy and business scholars, as well as pharmacy, health administration and public health scholars. Students at undergraduate or post-graduate level in marketing, business, pharmacy, or public health programs with an interest in healthcare and/or pharmaceutical marketing research will find this journal particularly helpful. This journal also aims to deliver value to managers working in the pharmaceutical companies and the healthcare sector including hospitals and health clinics, public health organizations, health regulatory agencies, etc. who would like to keep abreast of the latest research in the field. Finally, all stakeholders in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector such as healthcare professionals (doctors, nurses, caregivers, veterinary, etc.), patients and consumers, pharmacists, drug manufacturers, hospitals, clinics, government agencies, health insurers and others will find this journal useful to update themselves on the latest research and thinking in this dynamic sector.

The journal aspires to publish the highest quality research related to the broadest range of topics in pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing. Papers should include original work, be clearly and accurately presented, and be as concise as is compatible with treating the subject adequately. They should relate to some aspect of marketing or management, and address issues concerning the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector. Papers need to make some theoretical contributions and have some practical implications. Finally, the research should have some general implications beyond the narrow research context. In a seminal paper, Armstrong (1982) identified six criteria for evaluation of manuscripts: objectivity, replicability, importance, competence, intelligibility, and efficiency. In a subsequent article, Armstrong (2003) proposed four criteria that are useful in identifying whether research findings are important: replication, validity, usefulness, and surprise. Taking cue from these ideas, I have developed a set of 15 criteria that reviewers of IJPHM are asked to use to evaluate each manuscript: importance of the topic; originality of work; literature review and references; problem formulation; theoretical/conceptual framework; research design and methodology; data analysis; results obtained and implications; legitimacy of conclusions; practical significance; clarity of presentation, organization and writing style; relevance to pharmaceutical and healthcare industries; relevance to marketing and management; overall contribution of the paper; and likelihood of passing the “test of time.” Reviewers are encouraged to vote on one of six categories: reject, not worth revising or re-writing; major revisions needed; minor revisions needed; routine editing required; and accept as is.

In the first paper of this issue, Janet Carruthers, Michel Rod, and Nicholas Ashill discuss the issue of purchaser-provider interaction in public healthcare services with a view to improving stakeholder cooperation. Set in the backdrop of the UK National Health Service (NHS), this study employs a phenomenological perspective of interviewing staff of hospitals (provider) and local health authorities (purchasers). The authors identify four major themes – relationship dynamics, people/organizations, propensity/capacity to cooperate, and systems and procedures – that characterize purchase-provider stakeholder cooperation. This paper makes a significant contribution to the emerging literature on multi-stakeholder perspectives in the public sector.

The internet is becoming an important medium of dissemination of healthcare information. The second paper by Charles Bodkin and George Miaoulis, Jr is an exploratory study of consumer perceptions on eHealth information quality and ethics issues. Using a large national random sample of 1,227 respondents, the authors conduct a thorough analysis of consumer profiles, e-health information sought, web site quality criteria, sites visited, use/purchase on web site, and perceptions of ethical issues by gender and age. Four major findings emerge relating to quality of information, consumer perceptions and brand loyalty, online purchase behaviors, and other online services.

The third paper by Sneath identifies some marketing challenges involved in communicating cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation information and providing lay person training to improve the chance of survival for patients suffering out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Based on the efforts of a local chapter of the American Heart Association in Troup County, Georgia (USA), the study uses a sample survey to uncover user awareness, perceptions and attitudes. The study shows that lay persons find defibrillators difficult to use and are uncomfortable performing resuscitation by mouth-to-mouth contact with strangers. Sneath concludes by providing some ideas for effective training and marketing communications that can address such misconceptions.

The fourth paper by Hassan, Patro, Tuckman, and Wang is a rigorous study of the short term abnormal returns of mergers and acquisitions for both US-based and foreign-based targets in the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry engages intensively in merger and acquisition activities. Earlier studies combining mergers and acquisitions as one group have been unable to detect the difference in their success rates. An interesting finding of this paper is that abnormal returns are found for acquisitions but not for mergers. The paper ends with a reflection on why the pharmaceutical industry favors mergers when acquisitions seem to be more profitable.

The fifth scholarly piece in this issue is a case study. The case study titled “Winning the China Vitamin war by building a strong brand” is co-authored by Junsong Chen and Willem P. Burgers. The case provides interesting insights into the health supplement market in China. It details the strategies of Goldpartner, a multi-vitamin brand, on various aspects like market testing, product positioning, market segmentation and targeting, differentiation, and branding strategy. Issues emerging from this case relate to individual branding versus brand extension, penetration versus skimming, choice of promotional tools, ethics in “soft advertising,” etc. Interesting differences between the Chinese and western health supplement markets provide some food for thought.

As Editor of IJPHM, I will focus on making the journal international and multi-disciplinary. First, the journal is truly international in scope, with authors, editorial board members, reviewers, and readers coming from various parts of the world. In this issue, scholars from the USA, New Zealand, UK, and China have published their writings. Second, this journal has a multi-disciplinary orientation. We are open to distinct research traditions and different approaches to scientific enquiry as long as they address the marketing and management domains relevant to the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector. This issue introduces a variety of perspectives such as a quantitative approach adopted by Bodkin and Miaoulis and by Sneath, a qualitative approach adopted by Carruthers, Rod and Ashill, a rigorous analytical and finance-driven approach adopted by Hassan, Patro, Tuckman and Wang, and a case study approach adopted by Chen and Burgers. In addition to publishing original empirical and theoretical research articles, I would like to introduce other interesting varieties of articles in the journal. For example, I intend to publish one case study in each issue. This will be of great interest to instructors who are teaching courses in these areas and are always looking for good case studies. I would also like to publish practitioner perspective articles, i.e. papers authored or co-authored by practitioners whose thoughts reflect latest trends and developments in the industry. Occasional interviews with leading practitioners would also be a welcome feature. I would also look forward to receiving rapid communications or commentaries (succinct manuscripts summarizing experimental results of exceptional importance or urgency), brief reports (instructive scientific or industry reports), letters to the editor, review articles (summarizing major theoretical developments and/or innovations), rostrum articles (opinion articles about subjects of particular interest or debate), and instructors corner (articles about subjects of particular interest to instructors). We hope that these features will raise the visibility of the journal to a wider audience and generate greater interest in the journal.

Faculty evaluations of research quality often use the accessibility of journal content as a surrogate measure. IJPHM is published by Emerald Group Publishing, which is the world's leading publisher of management journals and databases. The journal forms part of the Emerald Management Xtra 150 database. This means that articles published in this journal have the potential to be viewed by more than 1,600 institutions and 15 million users worldwide. The journal has also been accepted for inclusion in the Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities in Marketing. The journal has received submissions from several leading scholars in this field from universities like Purdue, Rutgers, NTU, Victoria-Wellington, Montclair State, Northeastern, North Carolina, Lynchburg, South Alabama, Pace, IIMA, Central Florida, Minnesota, Georgia, East Tennessee, Virginia Commonwealth, Central Connecticut, etc. Papers have been received from several countries, i.e. USA, UK, Singapore, India, China, Mauritius, Nigeria, Malaysia, Australia, and New Zealand. The editorial board consists of leading scholars from Harvard, Columbia, NYU, Connecticut, INSEAD, ESSEC, Bradford, Manchester, Nottingham, Glasgow, Strathclyde, Rutgers, Toronto, Aston, NUS, IIMA, CEIBS, and other prestigious universities. The acceptance rate of manuscripts for this journal is about 30 percent. All these indicators point to a promising start to the creation of a premier journal in this niche area.

All scholars working in the area of pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing and management have a stake in the future of the journal. In that spirit, I urge you, the reader, to take active interest in the journal. A journal is only as good as the quality of its manuscripts and reviews. I strongly urge all scholars and practitioners with an interest in healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing and management to submit your best research ideas, volunteer to review papers, provide constructive criticism and thoughts, and spread the word about the journal to your colleagues and students. I will focus on continuously improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the review process by getting manuscripts rigorously reviewed by excellent reviewers in a timely fashion.

Montclair State University is the academic home of this new journal. Located in New Jersey, the School of Business of Montclair State University maintains a close relationship with the US pharmaceutical industry and offers courses in healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing. The academic side of this journal could not have been managed without the active support and cooperation of Dr Alan Oppenheim, Dean of the School of Business and Dr John McGinnis, Chair of the Department of Marketing at Montclair State University. I would also like to thank Kai Li Weng, Editorial Assistant for helping me put together this issue. Finally, a special note of thanks goes out to all the reviewers and the members of the editorial board for the amount of work and support given to the journal.

I hope there is much here in this inaugural issue that will inform, challenge and delight. Read on and enjoy!

Avinandan Mukherjee