Beyond KOL management: communities of practice as a new perspective on pharmaceutical market penetration

Pharmaceutical marketers have traditionally relied heavily on the diffusion of innovation model and the associated idea of the key opinion leader. However, these ideas are strongly rooted in consumer markets and have little empirical support in the complex, professional decision making process typical of pharmaceutical markets. As an alternative perspective, this article considers the concept of communities of practice, which explains the acceptance of new practice in terms of situated learning amongst a professional network. Using data about the relationships, activity and therapeutic concerns of 1746 colorectal physicians, this article examines whether the communities of practice model provides a useful description of that market. It finds that the data does support the idea of communities of practice. Implications of this for future research and the practice of pharmaceutical marketing are discussed.