Can Applied Entrepreneurship Education Enhance Job Satisfaction and Financial Performance? An Empirical Investigation in the Australian Pharmacy Profession
Posted: 24 Nov 2009
Date Written: 2002
Abstract
As pharmacy has become a "dual market" industry in today's market, Australian pharmacists face difficulties in combining business skills with professional and patient-oriented skills. Australian pharmacists face a threat to their profession as decreasing industry regulations may allow non-pharmacists (supermarkets, chain stores, and other retailers) to own pharmacies, thus calling for improving professionals' entrepreneurial qualities through education. The Pharmacist Advice Program is used as an example of applied entrepreneurial education, seeking to evaluate the program's benefits, both professional and financial. The respondents' job satisfaction is measured (in terms of the respondent's job attitude on a common scale), along with profit (both gross and net), and sales (measured by total sales). Using experimental methodology (post test-only control group design), data is collected through a questionnaire, sampling 38 New South Wales pharmacies implementing the Pharmacist Advice Program. The response rate is 66%, and the results show that pharmacists who implemented the entrepreneurial education offered in the Program manifested greater job satisfaction than those who maintained the status quo. The relevance of this type of research to the development of the pharmacy profession in Australia is assessed. Despite the lack of evidence for a link between sales/profit performance and entrepreneurial education, given the limits of the project, it is recommended that future research link entrepreneurship education to financial performance that will call for both significant project resources and elaborate project designs.(CBS)
Keywords: Pharmacists, Experimental/primary research, Pharmacist Advice Program, Job satisfaction, Entrepreneurship education, Program evaluation
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation