Journal: VINE (Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems) / Scopus
Ahmed Toufiq and Kunio Shirahada
———————————————————————
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the drug knowledge transfer process in pharmaceutical marketing and to investigate how drug knowledge transfer facilitate to change General Practitioners’ (GPs) prescribing decision.

Design: A qualitative semi-structured interview has been conducted with 13 Medical Representatives (MRs) from 5 anonymous Japanese pharmaceutical companies and 14 General Practitioners (GPs), working in Japan. Study sample has been selected through snowball method and data were analyzed by using an inductive research analysis method.

Findings: Findings revealed that periodic and direct knowledge transfer between MRs and GPs facilitates to change GPs prescribing decision from one to another brand of drug. In the prescribing decision changing process, GPs are tending to evaluate and observe the acquired knowledge through academic journal and conferences, consulting with their colleagues, and ICT. After having a satisfactory evaluation and observation of acquired drug knowledge, GPs are tending to apply in their prescription. Other communication channels such as the internet, telephone, direct or postal mails are used as re-enforcing tools of the direct drug knowledge transfer process.

Originality: The study contributes to the understanding of drug knowledge transfer from MRs to GPs in pharmaceutical marketing, still an area of under-explored topic.