Influencing Factors of Physician's Intention to Use Cyber Salesperson of Ethical Drugs

의사들의 전문의약품 사이버영업사원 사용의도에 대한 영향요인

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to investigate influencing factors on physician's intention to use cyber salesperson(cSP) to promote ethical drugs of pharmaceutical company. We considered influencing factors based on technology acceptance model(TAM) such as usefulness, easy of use, and attitude about cSP, and included trust and joyfulness of cSP. Methods : Measure items were developed from the previous studies. Data were collected from 1,012 physicians by using web-based self-administered structured questionnaire. Results : The major findings were as follows; First, attitude and intention to use cSP were not significantly varied by socio-demographic variables, such as sex, age, location, and Internet surfing time per day. Also, physician's characteristics such as training and professional level and type of employment were not significant to the variation of attitude and intention to use cSP. Second, structural equation modeling(SEM) analysis shows that usefulness and joyfulness were influencing factors of intention to use. Attitude was revealed as significant mediating factor to intention to use. Usefulness has indirect effect on intention to use via attitude. However, trust has not significant effect on intention to use, due to suppression effect. Conclusions : This results implies that cSP will be a useful agent to promote the ethical drugs to physician. Usefulness and joyfulness should be considered as important factors in designing and operating cSP in the Internet.