The factors impacting ethical behavior of Malaysian pharmacists

Abstract

This study aims to identify the factors that impact ethical behaviour of Malaysian pharmacists and the industry practices that are deemed unethical by Malaysian pharmacists comprising mainly of hospital and community pharmacists. 123 pharmacists from independent pharmacies, chain store pharmacies, hospital pharmacies and other areas responded to this survey. The average age of respondent was 27 years of age. 77% of the respondents were female making this a radical business ethics study exploring the responses from a large group of working women in Malaysia. About half of the respondents were married. The results of this study show that ethical behaviour of co-workers, actions of successful managers and years of pharmaceutical experience in current job have an impact on ethical decisions of employees in the pharmacy profession. The most unethical industry practice is price discrimination and unfair pricing. Race, gender and professional ethics education did not impact ethical behaviour. Overclaiming scales indicated that social desirability bias did not significantly impact the results of this study. Implications of this study and areas of future research were discussed. Limitations of the study were also discussed.