OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

Transcription

1 RESEARCH DESIGN A Research Design is a framework or blueprint for conducting the research. It specifies the details of the procedures necessary for obtaining the information needed to structure and solve marketing research problems. In present study, Descriptive research questions have been asked during survey and research hypotheses have been tested in the context of unfair trade practices in pharmaceutical industry. Data obtained shows the opinion about trade practices of doctors and marketers. The major emphasis in present study is to analyze the opinion and involvement of doctors, marketers, customers in the unfair trade practices. Following two methods in the context of research design for the present study have been used. 1 (a) The survey of concerning literature: Present research work is descriptive in nature. In this researcher has reviewed concerning literature about unfair trade practices in pharmaceutical industry from various articles, research papers and books, which helped in formulated the research problem and developing hypothesis. (b) Experience Survey: Researcher has contacted a number of market representatives, doctors, distributors, and customers who had practical experience with the problem and contributed their significant views for the research work. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY Objectives are necessary for every study. They provide a sense of direction and focus the efforts. Objectives of the study are: 1. To know the opinion of customers, doctors, distributors and market representatives about various unfair trade practices existing in the pharmaceutical market.. To identify the statutory measures available under Consumer Protection Act To analyze the customer s opinion and involvement towards medical practitioners/chemists & market representatives and their practices. 105

2 4. To ascertain awareness level of customers, doctors, medical representative and distributors about consumer protection act and unfair trade practices Act. 5. To analyze the opinion of doctors towards distributors and medical representatives of pharmaceutical products. 6. To determine the opinion and experience of medical representatives towards various marketing practices undertaken by pharmaceutical companies. 7. To know opinion of customers and medical representatives about false claims in advertisements by pharmaceutical companies. HYPOTHESES OF THE STUDY 1. There is no significant difference in the awareness level of male and female customers about unfair trade practices in pharmaceutical industry.. Education level has no impact on the awareness of customers about unfair trade practices in pharmaceutical industry. 3. There is no significant difference among the awareness level of wholesaler and retailer about unfair trade practices in pharmaceutical industry 4. There is no significant difference among the awareness level of doctors, medical representatives, distributors and customers about unfair trade practices in pharmaceutical industry. 5. There is no significant difference between the ranks given by doctors, customers, distributors and medical representatives 6. Customers don t have same opinion about various parameters. SAMPLE DESIGN In most of the research studies, the amount of work is always limited by two constraints - time and resources. With these limitations, the sample has been drawn, so that it may be representative of the entire universe. The data was collected from four types of respondents: customers, doctors, distributors and market representatives. Convenience sampling technique has been used for selection of sample design. One doctor, one market representative and one distributor is selected from each district of the Haryana State. Sample size for the customers is 40, which is 0 customers per districts. But some respondents took 106

3 no interest in filling questionnaire so questionnaire is dully filled by only 300 customers. This has been done in view of time and financial resources available with the researcher. Universe of the Study All doctors, market representatives and distributors operating in India constitute the universe of the present study. Sample Population Table 5.1:Customers Profile Characteristics Category/Class Percent Sex Male 67.3 Female 3.7 Qualification Up to Graduate 39 Above Graduate 41.3 Age Below Above 40 7 Customers profile In the present study, responses from respondents were collected, coded and tabulated in SPSS As shown in the table more than half of the respondents were male. They were 67.3% and female respondents were 3.7%. Total number of respondents in customers profile was % of respondents are qualified up to % of respondents were 10 th to graduate. And 41.3% of respondents are educated above graduate. 4.33% of 107

4 Male Female Up to Graduate Above Graduate Below Above 40 respondents were below the age of 0 years % respondents were between 0 to 40 age group. Majority of the respondents were below the age of 40 years. 7% respondents were above the age of 40 years Customers profile Percent Sex Qualification Age Table5. : Distributors Profile Characteristics Category/Class Percent Nature of distribution ship Wholesaler 3.3 Retailer 67.7 Monthly Income Below Above In the present research there were 31 distributors. Among these 67.7% are retailers and 3.3% are wholesalers % of distributors belong to income category of above Rs. 108

5 % respondent income was between the range of Rs to Rs % respondent s income was below Rs Distributors profile Percent Wholesaler Retailer Below Above Nature of distribution ship Monthly Income Table 5.3: Doctors Profile Characteristics Category/Class Percent Qualification MBBS 65 MD/MS 35 Monthly Income Below Above

6 Doctors Profile: In doctors profile there are 0 respondents. Among them 65% were MBBS and 35% are MD/MS. Monthly income of 50% doctors was between Rs to % doctors earned below Rs per month and 0% doctors income was above per month Doctors profile MBBS MD/MS Below Above Qualification Monthly Income Percent Table: 5.4Medical Representative Profile Characteristics Category/Class Percent post Medical Representatives 100 Medical Representatives Profile: 1 medical representatives were taken from different companies for the study. DATA COLLECTION Data were collected from the primary and secondary sources. Collection of Secondary Data The present study has been conducted with special reference to Haryana. Secondary data have been taken for the purpose of general understanding of unfair trade practices in 110

7 pharmaceutical sector. Secondary data has been collected from books, journals, unpublished thesis works, websites, and research articles from magazines. Collection of Primary Data Mailed questionnaires, discussions and non-participant observation formed the tools and techniques of data collection from the primary sources. Doctors, Market representatives, Distributors and customers served as the primary source of information. Four comprehensive questionnaires, intended to be an instrument for obtaining the necessary information were prepared for administering among the relevant respondents. A pilot study was conducted during January-February, 010 and in the light of knowledge thus, obtained, necessary changes were made in order to serve the purpose of the study more accurately. The questionnaire for customers is mainly directed towards finding out the involvement and opinion of customers towards unfair trade practices in pharmaceutical industry. Hence questions covering awareness about unfair trade practices in pharmaceutical industry, practices of false claims in advertisements, opinion towards practices of marketers, doctors, market representatives, involvement in asking different variables related to prescribed drugs etc. have been included. Another questionnaire was prepared for doctors; questions covering about the awareness level of doctors about unfair trade practices in pharmaceutical industry, opinion of doctors about the involvement of doctors in unfair trade practices have been included. Third questionnaire was prepared for market representatives, question covering about the awareness level of market representatives about unfair trade practices, reasons for tied selling, involvement in unfair trade practices of market representatives etc. Another questionnaire was for distributors, which was prepared to find out awareness level about unfair trade practices in pharmaceutical industry, different practices of wholesalers, condition contracts of wholesalers etc. To make study more meaningful, personal interview with marketing managers of companies and channel heads of distributors were conducted. During the course of interview, questions pertaining to the marketing practices of pharmaceutical industry which promote 111

8 unfair trade practices in pharmaceutical industry were discussed and probable solutions for controlling unfair trade practices in pharmaceutical sector were discussed..3.3 Administration of the Questionnaire Questionnaires were filled by customers, doctors, distributors and market representatives. All were personally contacted by the researcher and got the questionnaires duly filled by them. A few respondents took keen interest in these questionnaires and returned them duly completed in all respects. In some cases the researcher encountered with the problems like they forgot to fill it up or didn t bring it and so on. Thus, the response was neither very much encouraging nor disappointing. Problems faced during Survey The researcher faced a number of difficulties namely: (i) Distributors were very secretive about their marketing practices. (ii) A few numbers of respondents were not familiar with the meaning of unfair trade practices. Hence the researcher had to spend lot of time in explaining these terms and in spite of such an effort by the researcher, the concerned respondents were not able to give proper answers to the open-ended questions put to them. But researcher tried his best to make the subject under study as simple as possible for the respondents..4 DATA PRESENTATION Responses obtained from the returned questionnaires were separately coded and entered on the computer terminal for use in computer tabulations. SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) was used to analyse the data and to check the difference in means of different samples. However, ranks analysis and percentage method are main tools for analysing the surveyed information..4.1 Pattern of Assigning Rank Rank can be assigned by taking either the highest value as 1 or the lowest value as 1. In present study we assigned 1 st rank to highest value and so on. 11

9 .4. Equal Ranks In some cases it was found necessary to rank two or more individuals or entries as equal. In such a case it is customary to give each item an average rank. Thus if two items are ranked equal at third place, they have been given the rank ranked equal at third place they have been given the rank 4 3 Conversion of Rank into Scores 3 4, that is 3.5 while if three are The responses were obtained in the form of rank (1,,3,...n). The ranks received to the various items were converted into scores by assigning weights equal to (n, n-1...,1) and the average scores computed as (Total scores obtained No. Respondents). TOOLS FOR ANALYSIS In this study, various tools of statistics have been used for the purpose of analysis. Percentage, Arithmetic Mean, ( X ), test, mean difference tests have been applied. The uses of all these techniques have been made as per the requirement of the analysis. Percentage / Ratio Analysis Percentile analysis is regarded as one of the best tools in analyzing and describing the awareness and detail of different practices in pharmaceutical industries. Therefore, it has extensively been used in this study. Arithmetic Mean ( X ) Arithmetic mean gives a single value to describe the whole data. Simple arithmetic mean of each series of different response was obtained by dividing the number of respondents in specific group. Symbolically, X x x x N...x or x N 1 3 n Where: ( X ) = Arithmetic mean x = Sum of all observations i.e., x 1, x, x 3. x n N = Number of observations 113

10 - Test The test (Pronounced as chi-square test) is one of the simplest and most widely use non -parametric test in statistical work. The quantity describes the magnitude of discrepancy between theory and observation. In this research researcher has used this test to determine whether two independent random samples drawn from different populations are homogeneous. It is defined as: = (O E) E Where: O = refers to the observed frequencies and E = refers to the expected frequencies Test Criteria The calculated value of is compared with the table value of for given degrees of freedom at 0.05 level of significance. If the calculated value of >.05 the difference between the theory and observation, is said to be significant at 0.05 level of significance; other wise the data are said to be consistent with the hypothesis. t -Test t -distribution was obtained by W.S. Gossett in the early 1900s is used generally to test the significance of the various results obtained from small samples. In our research, we use to test the difference between the means of the two samples (Independent sample). To carry out the test, we calculate the statistic, t. X1 X t S n1 n n n 1 114

11 The value of S (X1 X1) (X n n 1 X ) Where: n 1 = Size Sample one n = Size Sample two X 1 = mean of sample one X = mean of sample two S 1 = Standard Deviation of sample one S = Standard Deviation of sample two S = Combined Standard Deviation of both sample Test Criteria If the calculated value of t be>significant value at 0.05 then difference between the sample means, is said to be significant different at 5 per cent level of significance; otherwise the data are said to be consistent with the hypothesis. All hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Analysis of Variance: Analysis of Variance (abbreviated as ANOVA) is one of the most powerful techniques of statistical analysis. It was developed by R.A. Fisher. Analysis of variance thus enables us to test on the basis of sample observations whether the means of three or more population is significantly different or not. There may be variation between the samples and also within the samples. Thus, the analysis of variance obtains a measure of the variance within the samples and also variance between the samples and then test the significance of the difference between the means of two or more population ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY The present study has been divided into seven chapters dealing with different aspects of unfair trade practices. Chapter I begins with introduction to the subject, which contains an overview of pharmaceutical industry, justification of the study, hypotheses, scope and limitations of the study. 115

12 Chapter II contains conceptual framework relating to the subject such as meaning and definition of Restrictive Trade Practices, Unfair Trade Practices and Other acts restricting or controlling unfair trade practices. Chapter III gives a detailed discussion on conceptual framework of drug and license of drugs, Approval procedure for new drug, Product standards, five major forces of driving competition in the pharmaceutical market of India and Market entry strategy etc. Chapter IV deals with reviews, the available literature relevant to the present study Chapter V deals with design of the study, it contains, objectives of the study,research design, sampling procedure, methodology used in this study. Chapter VI present an analysis of the data collected through the four questionnaires which helps in detailing the objectives of the study. Chapter VII contains summary of the major findings and suggests a few lines for unfair trade practices in pharmaceutical industry. 116

13 REFERENCES 1. Kothari, C.R. (1996). Research Methodology, New age international publisher, nd edition. Gupta, S.P. (1994). Statistics Method, New Delhi: Sultan Chand and Sons, pp. E Cooper R Donald, Schindler S Pamela, Business Research Methodology Tata McGraw Hill, 9 th edition, pp