Network connectedness of pharmaceutical sales rep (FLE) - physician dyad and physician prescription behaviour: a conceptual model

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.