The Study On The Strategy And Performance Of Pharmacies In Taiwan--A Strategic Group View

This study used a method of strategic groups to classify community pharmacies in Taiwan in order to explore the different group's strategic patterns. A strategic group is a group of organizations which pursues similar strategies with similar resources. By applying Hatten's performance theory (1978), the company performance was mainly influenced by their action and the market structure, this study investigated the relationship between strategic groups and pharmacy performance.This study utilized the strategic dimensions theory. From the two main strategic dimensions such as domain investment and resource allocation, in accordance to the findings of previous research and the advice from experts, the strategy was then further developed into 5 strategic dimensions and 36 strategic variables. Subsequently, community pharmacies in Taiwan were categorized into different pharmacy strategic groups using cluster analysis with 4 strategic variables on behalf of operating characteristics. Thus, exploring the connection among pharmacy strategic groups, the relationship between the quality of pharmacy operators and the choice of strategic groups, the different performance existing in the different strategic groups, and the influence of two core competence-the ability of managing supply chain and serving professionally to the different strategic groups.In this study, 243 questionnaires were received from 2,200 community pharmacies in Taiwan in March 2007. The results of this research were as follows: (1) The strategic groups in the community pharmacies were subdivided into three groups-naming after "the group to expand positively", "the group to follow steadily" and "the group to conservative tightly" separately, using the 4 strategic dimensions including the characteristic of product, the activities of marketing, spercial service and personnel system and task management, and each were different in its strategic patterns. (2) The performance of the three strategic groups was quite different. (3) The quality of pharmacy operators was related with the choice of strategic groups significantly,and then was related with the pharmacy performance of significantly. (4) The performance among the pharmacies was no difference in the same strategic group. (5) The two core competence-the ability of managing supply chain and serving professionally moderated the relationship between the pharmacy permance and different strategic groups.This research suggests that the strategic groups of community pharmacies function in guiding the performance in pharmacy management strategically. The result of this research not only contributes to clarify the competition advantages of the pharmaceutical industry but also provides a strategy for the growth of gaining profit for pharmacies. On the one hand, our government can use the result of this research as reference to establish its pharmacy management policy. On the other hand, it can also be applied to the pharmacy management practices to assist community pharmacies in industrial analysis and location analysis to enhance its competitiveness.In this study, our contributions are listed as follows: 1) When interviewing the pharmacy operators and consulting relevant experts, and considering the characteristics of community pharmacies, the research develops four strategic dimensions such as the characteristics of product, the activities of marketing, spercial service and personnel system and task management. And then community pharmacies in Taiwan are categorized into three pharmacy strategic groups using cluster analysis according to the five strategic dimensions in this research.The three strategic groups are named after "the group to expand positively", "the group to follow steadily" and "the group to conservative tightly" separately. It is a new topic to analyze the strategic groups of community pharmacies in Taiwan from the strategic groups view. 2) Our results in this research find that the performance of the three strategic groups is quite different. Furtherly, based on the core competence view, the result is that different competence in the different strategic groups causing different performance by using linear regression analysis.The result extends the study field only from the individual pharmacy operation strategy view or the headquarters of chain-store operation strategy view in the past. 3) This research indicates that the quality of pharmacy operators is related with the choice of strategic groups significantly, such as the job tenture, age and educational background of pharmacy operators.It can explain why different pharmacy choose different strategic group, and how to match the quality of pharmacy operators with different operation strategies causing the best performance from the quality of pharmacy operators view furtherly. 4)This research support the theoretical viewpoint that the performance among the pharmacies is no difference in the same strategic group by using empirical methodology.