Impact of Chinese government’s pharmaceutical reform policy on the foreign companies’ downstream supply chain management

Abstract

The research delves into the intricate realm concerning applying social exchange elements in supply chain management within a pharmaceutical policy reform context, recognising its significance in the current scholarly discourse. Foreign pharma in China has diverse advantages, and it is a primary reform target and research subject that helps to provide affordable, high-quality, and accessible medicines to the public. Existing literature highlights a gap in understanding the Chinese government’s pharmaceutical policy reform from a supply chain perspective, applying social exchange elements in supply chain network development and performance improvement, and practical/business/management implementations to stakeholders, necessitating a focused investigation.

To achieve this, the research is guided by the following objectives: firstly, to explore how foreign pharmaceutical companies develop a network with the members of the downstream supply chain, in response to the pharmaceutical policy reform in China. Secondly, to explore how the foreign pharmaceutical companies apply various social exchange elements to develop a network with the members of the downstream supply chain management, in response to the pharmaceutical reform in China, and thirdly, to establish the impact of pharmaceutical policy reforms in China and social exchange elements on downstream supply chain performance of foreign pharma.

Methodologically, a qualitative research design is adopted, allowing for exploring research objectives through focus groups and interviews. This provides rich data regarding collaborative items, the implementation situation of the policy reform, and the application of social exchange elements. The study utilises NVivo to analyse the gathered data, ensuring the reliability and validity of the findings. By adopting this rigorous methodology, the research aims to offer a nuanced perspective on the research gaps beyond surface-level understanding.

The key findings of the research exhibit the implementation status of the policy reform (normal and under the pandemic), and based on that, supply chain competence is expected to be developed. Moreover, the identification/classification of social exchange elements is more detailed within a supply chain context, as well as the significance off the social exchange elements (e.g., the importance of mixed elements). The development of the social exchange elements exhibits detailed, dynamic, widely covered, and compound development, and findings related to levels of social exchange elements highlight how to identify levels and the preference for higher-level elements. Lastly, the impact of social exchange elements on supply chain performance is explored, and interaction is shared instead of one-way. Besides, the importance of the determiners of both elements is highlighted in the interrelationship statement.

In terms of theoretical contributions, this research broadly extends existing social exchange theory by capturing the identification/classification, significance, development, levels of social exchange elements, and their interaction with supply chain performance within a supply chain context, exploring their integration into strategic network development. Moreover, the study provides critical strategic insights for the foreign pharmaceutical companies’ downstream supply chain management concerning bridging operational level management to strategic network development and supply chain performance improvement, offering actionable recommendations for relevant stakeholders (e.g., manufacturers) in response to the policy reform.

Date of Award	Jun 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Coventry University
Supervisor	Mujahid Mohiuddin Babu (Supervisor), Alexandre Metreveli (Supervisor), Dongmei Cao (Supervisor) & Ming Lim (Supervisor)