Identifying and prioritizing industry-level competitiveness factors: evidence from pharmaceutical market.

Background: Pharmaceutical industry is knowledge-intensive and highly globalized, in both developed and developing countries. On the other hand, if companies want to survive, they should be able to compete well in both domestic and international markets. The main purpose of this paper is therefore to develop and prioritize key factors affecting companies' competitiveness in pharmaceutical industry. Based on an extensive literature review, a valid and reliable questionnaire was designed, which was later filled up by participants from the industry. To prioritize the key factors, we used the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS).

Results: The results revealed that human capital and macro-level policies were two key factors placed at the highest rank in respect of their effects on the competitiveness considering the industry-level in pharmaceutical area.

Conclusion: This study provides fundamental evidence for policymakers and managers in pharma context to enable them formulating better polices to be proactively competitive and responsive to the markets' needs.