Supporting Data for "Why do Retail Pharmacies Violate the Law--An Empirical Study from Northeast China"

The data is obtained through a four-month fieldtrip in C City, J Province, China. During my fieldwork, I visited 19 retail pharmacies and interviewed 10 customers, 2 government officials, and 29 employees working at retail pharmacies, with some interviewees being accessed twice. I adopted a semi-structured interview approach and conducted all the interviews in Chinese on myself. Most interviews lasted 30 to 50 minutes, while those with customers were shorter, around 20 to 30 minutes. To ensure that the interviewees felt comfortable sharing their opinions and feelings, I did not record the interviews. Instead, every time immediately after the interview I typed up the content down from my memory.

Structured on abundant literature of why businesses comply, my fieldwork follows two presumptions. First, why retail pharmacies violate the law should be measured from the perspective of individuals. Second, retail pharmacies’ confirming behavior may be determined by factors beyond deterrence. Clinging to these two points, in the field trip, I did not predefine what factors motivating retail pharmacies to violate the law but, rather, in an open and qualitative way, left this to the interviewees, thus allowing for a plurality of sources of motivation.

This data file comprises of interview scripts, observation notes, and blank forms in Chinese. The interview scripts record the conversations with regulators, customers, and mangers and salesmen of retail pharmacies and drug wholesalers. All interviewees are anonymized. The observation notes present retail pharmacies' behaviors, in which the real names of retail pharmacies are replaced with codes. Blank forms include informed consent forms and semi-structured interview script samples. The signed consent forms are excluded for protecting the interviewees' private information.