Welcome to the second issue of IJPHM

Citation

Mukherjee, A. (2007), "Welcome to the second issue of IJPHM", International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing, Vol. 1 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijphm.2007.32401baa.001

Welcome to the second issue of IJPHM

Welcome to the second issue of IJPHM

Welcome to the second issue of the International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing (IJPHM). With the healthcare systems in most countries in trouble and in need for managerial solutions, our journal offers a platform for effective dialogue within academics, and between academics and managers on a variety of critical issues. Since, marketing is more of a way of organizational thinking and a business philosophy that helps us to focus on the customer and other external and internal stakeholders and to create value for them, there can be significant applications of marketing in the healthcare value chain.

As conceived in its initial planning stages, this journal strives to be eclectic, international, and interdisciplinary. This issue is no exception. The papers in this journal issue discuss an eclectic variety of problems that are critical to marketing and management in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector. Papers address a diverse set of issues such as prescription drug information sources, e-health information search behaviour, vertical integration in the pharmaceutical industry, GIS approach for healthcare delivery to urban poor, and ROI for pharmaceutical marketing. Papers in this issue come from the USA, Singapore, India, and New Zealand. You will also see that these papers are embracing interdisciplinary perspectives that touch information technology, e-commerce, communications, and strategy, along with marketing and management in pharmaceuticals and healthcare. Echoing published papers, the pattern of manuscript submissions also continues to be eclectic, international, and interdisciplinary with regard to research topics, contexts, and methodologies.

Perceptions and usage of information sources on prescription drugs and online health information search are critical issues in healthcare marketing. The first two papers in this issue deal with this very important topic. The first paper by DeLorme, Huh, and Reid explores senior consumers' perceptions of prescription drug information sources using an interpretative approach. The authors suggest that identification of key sources of information is based on frequency of access/utilization and trust. Specific recommendations on use of different information sources such as direct-to-consumer advertising on TV, print, sampling, packaging, internet, physician, and pharmacists are provided.

The second paper by Park, Goetzinger, Lee, and Widdows develops and tests an empirical model for value-driven consumer e-health information search behaviour with perceived quality as antecedents. Using structural equation modelling on survey data from 263 online respondents, the authors demonstrate that information relevance drives utilitarian value derived by consumer from e-health information seeking, which in turn influences satisfaction with and intention to repeat information search. On the other hand, information clarity is related to epistemic value.

The third paper by Simonet is a historical case study of downstream vertical integration of US pharmaceutical companies with PBMs in the mid-1990s. Applying the resource-based view of the firm and the theory of contestable markets, the paper analyses the motives behind the integration, the consequences, and the reasons for their failure.

This is followed by a paper by Ramani, Mavalankar, Patel, and Mehandiratta, who describe a real-life project in which they have applied GIS methodology to develop a public private partnership model for providing urban primary healthcare services. The four criteria employed in their research to identify suitable locations for urban health centres are availability, access, affordability, and equity.

Finally, we have a practitioner-perspective article by Rod, Ashill, and Carruthers, that showcases the very important issue of ROI for pharmaceutical marketing.

As always, I would like to thank the authors for submitting their work and for painstakingly revising their manuscripts, the reviewers for their constructive review comments, and the members of the Editorial Board for their support and directions.

I hope you will find this issue informative and interesting. Happy reading!

Avinandan Mukherjee