The primary research question for this study is as follows: Do physicians prefer male or female pharmaceutical sales representatives? Thus, the purpose of the study is to investigate the role of gender in physicians' preferences for or perceptions of pharmaceutical sales representatives and reasons for their preference.
Early studies of the relationship between physicians and pharmaceutical sales representatives demonstrated that physicians were interested in and influenced by these sales representatives due to the information and educational support they received from them. However, physicians did not view the pharmaceutical sales representative as an important part of their practice. Physicians were impressed by the amount of patients that came to the sales representative and the selling techniques that they used to solicit these patients (Andaleeb & Tallman, 1995; 1996).
More recent studies of the relationship between physicians and pharmaceutical sales representatives focused on the link between physician ratings, customer satisfaction, and profitable customer relationships (Scharitzer & Kollarits, 2000). When customers are satisfied, both the physician and the pharmaceutical company benefit. Service quality became linked to economic success criteria. Efforts to increase customer satisfaction and profits resulted in related research. In a study of 190 general practitioners from multiple districts, participants were surveyed regarding satisfaction with three pharmaceutical companies on three performance dimensions: company service, product quality, and performance of the sales representative. Findings showed that most physicians reported high levels of satisfaction with the services of preferred companies and positive relationships between satisfaction with services and financial success of the pharmaceuticals market was shown. Services were related to service quality and service performance of the sales repres...