In many developed countries, the physician/pharmaceutical sales representative relationship has increasingly become the focus of ethical questions. Given this context, the purpose of the present study was to determine the ethical dilemmas faced by pharmaceutical sales representatives in Turkey in their relations with physicians, and to identify possible solutions. Through an investigator-designed questionnaire, the ethical problems perceived by 215 pharmaceutical sales representatives were quantitatively analyzed. Nearly all of the participants (96.7%) reported that they had faced ethical dilemmas in marketing drugs to physicians. The most commonly reported problems included paramedical requests (for free lab test kits, etc.) and the necessity of bargaining with physicians over the use of their firm's drugs by offering gifts and sponsorships. The participants in the study felt that physicians were the primary source of ethical problems in the marketing of drugs, and the participants' most highly ranked potential solution to these ethical problems was a better understanding, on the part of physicians, of the role of pharmaceutical sales representatives. At the end of this study, suggestions are given with a view to helping health policy makers understand and address the current controversies involving drug company representatives and physicians.
Marketing communication in the health sector is the communication of the products or services produced by health organizations to the potential users and convincing them about the benefits to be provided. Although the use of the concept of health services and promotion is controversial, promotional activities in health services are different from promotion activities in other sectors. Public relations (PRs) rather than advertising are in the forefront of promotion activities in the health sector. Health institutions, especially hospitals, are highly complex systems both in terms of services provided and organizational structure. The aim of this study is to reveal the importance of promotion activities in health care and their different aspects from other sectors. In this context, the international literature on health marketing was searched, and this content was created. As a result, the aim of promotion in health services is not to direct the patient unnecessarily to consumption but to inform patients, to convince them about benefits of the services, and to facilitate their service delivery by increasing their participation in the service process. If promotion tools are used correctly in health care, they can help in early diagnosis of many diseases.
This paper examines trade credit and bank credit behavior of firms during financial crisis using World Bank Survey dataset that contains detailed data on trade credit utilization of firms. Unlike literature, cluster analysis is used in order to investigate credit behavior of firms during financial crisis. For better clustering results, feature selection method is used to select variables thought to be important on model. When examined the trade and bank credit behavior of clusters that have been formed by using these variables with clustering analysis, it has been found that impact of the crisis on firms in the supply chain is important. It is found that due to demand fall for goods generated by crisis, firms are motivated to give trade credits to their customers in order not to lose them. However, firms need financial support either from the previous link in the supply chain through trade credit or from the financial institutions through bank credit.
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