| Abstract [eng] |
The main objective of the master's thesis is to determine the impact of consumer behaviour on the management of pharmacy inventory in emergency situations. The thesis consists of three main parts: the analysis of literature, the research and analysis of results and conclusions. After conducting a literature analysis, the author defined business processes and their modelling, the concept of inventory management and the inventory management process. The analysis also identified the importance of pharmacies in this area and the inventory management process in pharmacies. Factors influencing consumer behaviour were also defined and a part of consumer behaviour changes during emergency situations were identified during the analysis. Finally, a theoretical model and research hypotheses were formulated based on the literature analysis. The model includes the purchase of long-shelf-life products, panic buying, purchase of local products, purchase of cheaper alternatives, purchase of anxiety-reducing products and contact restriction as factors affecting certain elements of pharmacy inventory management. This model was used in the further research. After the literature analysis, the author conducted the research in two stages. In the first stage, an expert interview was conducted with regional managers of a pharmacy chain in Lithuania. This research aimed to understand if the inventory management process identified during the literature analysis corresponded to the real situation before the global coronavirus pandemic. Through qualitative interviews, the author also sought to determine if the identified changes in consumer behaviour had an impact on pharmacy inventory management. In the second stage of the research, the author conducted the main research of the master's thesis, focusing on the impact of consumer behaviour change on pharmacy inventory management. Pharmacy employees, who worked before the global coronavirus pandemic and potentially encountered changes in consumer behaviour, were surveyed. The respondents were presented with an online questionnaire, with questions selected based on the experience of other authors, the use of constructs from other authors. The reliability of these constructs was verified using the Cronbach's alpha coefficient and constructs, that did not reach the reliability threshold, were adjusted. The results of the expert interview helped the author to refine the pharmacy inventory management process. The results of this research also identified that the contact restriction during the global coronavirus pandemic did not have an impact on pharmacy inventory management, leading to modifications in the theoretical model. The results of the quantitative research were analysed by calculating correlation coefficients to determine the impact of changes in consumer behaviour on certain elements of inventory management process. The research results showed that none of the identified changes in consumer behaviour during the literature analysis had an impact on pharmacy inventory management. The author also analysed the results in the context of cities, revealing that in smaller Lithuanian cities, the hypothetical statement that panic buying hinders the verification of missing inventory is accepted. The author also examined whether pharmacy employees encountered the changes in consumer behaviour that were identified by the literature analysis during the coronavirus pandemic, even though they did not have an impact on pharmacy inventory management. It was found that pharmaceutical specialists encountered the purchase of long-shelf-life products, panic buying, and the purchase of cheaper alternatives during the pandemic. |
