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L'Oreal pharmaceutical crisis; an opportunity? The effect and differences in the pharmacist business culture on their service climate, products and performance

Otten, Marie-Paulien (2010) L'Oreal pharmaceutical crisis; an opportunity? The effect and differences in the pharmacist business culture on their service climate, products and performance.

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Abstract:La Roche-Posay is one of the two brands of the Active Cosmetics division of L’Oréal Netherlands. Those dermo-cosmetics products are distinguished by their dermatological vision and are distributed through pharmacies and specialist sections of drugstores. Because of a changing environment of healthcare regulation this distribution channel could be an opportunity or threat to the exploitation of products of Cosmetique Active. Through those changes in regulation of the health care market, the pharmacists is doubtful in their proactive reaction or willingness to change To learn more about the visions of the pharmacists this research gains information about the entrepreneurship styles of the pharmacist. Therefore the research exploit the possibilities to stimulate the products more functionally to enhance the service stimulation in the pharmacy. This orientation leaded to the following research question for the thesis; How does the environmental change affect the business culture of the pharmacist and how does this create opportunities to develop their service climate through their products and services quality to improve their performance? First a theoretical framework is developed how opportunities can arise out of change to the development of services. How an entrepreneur perceives changes and reacts on their changing environment is essential in staying competitive in the market position. Because environmental change is often seen as a driving force as the entrepreneur adapts, the role of creation value to improve their competitive posture is investigated. The scope of this research is to explore the orientation of entrepreneurship and market as the business culture of pharmacist in their ability to adapt to changes.The first qualitative study starts with a document study with the purpose to explore the current changes and role of the services and products through the value creation in the business model of the pharmacist. In this first study those changes and values are explored in five in-dept interviews. These interviews were accomplished within the independent pharmacist as through the chain pharmacist. The purpose of these interviews was to explore the relation between the different constructs of the values in the business model and changes of the market to perform a point of view for further research. The second study concerned a literature research to operationalize constructs within a theoretical evident. This framework is tested in a quantitative research with a survey of 104 pharmacists. The relations between the finding of study one are investigated and the hypothesis formed in the theoretical framework provided useful insight in the role of entrepreneurship. The purpose of these surveys was to examine the influence of the business culture (i.e. market- and entrepreneurial orientation) with influence of the stimulation of products on the service climate of the pharmacist to investigate the relation to their performance on the market with empirical data. This study develops a conceptual model to examine the service climate trough their services and products in the relationship between business culture and firm performance. Consistent with both the strategic management and marketing literature the findings confirm that market orientation and entrepreneurship are two key elements of the business culture. It is of influence on their service climate success and that therefore is optimal for a business culture to enhance performance and service. While previous researches indicate the relationship with a high performance this research indicates the important of the service climate and offering of their products to succeed in a service provider in the pharmaceutical market. Second it presents the differences in the business culture in how they respond on market environmental changes though their entrepreneurship. The existence of non-entrepreneurs, create a significant lower effort in their pro-activity and takes challenges to market risks. With a more orientated culture on the market, who focus on their consumer and competitor and dares to take risk in their business the services proves to be increased which demonstrated to be positive related to a the increase of their performance. Overall, these findings contribute to a better understanding of entrepreneurial orientation and difference in business of the pharmacist. Through its impact on their quality of service to their firm performance a few conclusions could be drawn. While the characteristic of an entrepreneur could enhance change better, the key findings illustrates that it is not in their perception of change. It was found that an alignment between market and entrepreneurship orientation is important for performance in services and products, suggests that pharmacist should stimulate entrepreneurial activities within an appropriate combination of these two orientations with the market. From a practical point of view, this study suggests that pharmacist should be aware of the importance of process in the link of entrepreneurial and market orientation to their service climate and firm performance. They have to facilitate dynamics and pro-activity by taking a leading role in managing changes on the market. For a pharmacist to improve their service climate they have to orientate on the customer and their competitor to achieve the information necessary to adapt or recognize opportunities. On the question how can La Roche-Posay deliver support to this change, is to stimulate the pharmacist motivation to recommend the products on skin problems. There are differences between the medical forces scoring lower than marketing of social forces and a focus on their motivation can contribute to the performance in their stimulation of products. An important emphasis here is also the differences in entrepreneurship, suggesting a focus on the exploitation of the opportunities rising in the awareness on the importance in the consumers place.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Clients:
La Roche-Posay
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:Business Administration MSc (60644)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/59964
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