Abstract
With over 2 billion people lacking medicines for treatable diseases and 14 million people dying annually from infectious disease, there is undeniable need for increased access to medicines. There has been an increasing trend to benchmark the pharmaceutical industry on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in access to medicines. Benchmarking creates a competitive inter-business environment and acts as incentive for improving CSR. This article investigates the corporate feedback discourses pharmaceutical companies make in response to criticisms from benchmarking reports. It determines whether these responses are part of a healthy process in increasing access to medicines or a barrier to improvement. A qualitative analysis on the feedback the industry provided was performed, and the responses seen in these statements were grouped by analysing the language used, the ideas portrayed and atti- tudes of the companies. Increasing transparency through benchmarking is a powerful tool which reveals the industry’s shortfalls to the public, affects the decisions of socially responsible investors, and is a risk to their financial bottom line. This article demonstrates the importance of benchmarking and transparency in creating inter-business competition and the translation of these responses to actual access to medicine practices.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Benoit, W. L.: 1997, ‘Image Repair Discourse and Crisis Communication’, Public Relations Review 23(2), 177-186.
Bradford, J.L. and D. E. Garrett: 1995, ‘The Effectiveness of Corporate Communicative Responses to Accusations of Unethical Behavior’, Journal of Business Ethics 14, 875-892.
Brammer, S., C. Brooks and S. Pavelin: 2006, ‘Corporate Social Performance and Stock Returns: UK Evidence from Disaggregate Measures, Financial Management 35(Autumn), 97–116.
Burke, L. and J. M. Logsdon: 1996, ‘How Corporate Social Responsibility Pays Off’, Long Range Planning 29(4), 495-502.
BusinessAssurance.com: 2008, ‘CEOs Plan to Increase CSR Investments by 25 Percent’, http://businessassurance.com/ceos-plan-to-increase-csr-investments-by-25-percent/.
Chang, L.B.: 2006, ‘Who’s in the Business of Saving Lives?’. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 31(5): 461-482.
Crook, C.: 2005, ‘Thee Good Company’, The Economist, January 22, 3–4.
Dhanarajan, S.: 2005, ‘Managing ethical standards: when rhetoric meets reality’, Development in Practice 15(3), 529-538.
Eden, S.: 1999, ‘‘We have the facts’ – how business claims legitimacy in the environmental debate’, Environment and planning A 31, 1295-1309.
Esteban, D.: 2008, ‘Strengthening corporate social responsibility in the pharmaceutical industry’, Journal of Medical Marketing, 8(1), 77-79.
Flanagan, W. and G. Whiteman: 2007, ‘“Aids is Not a Business”: A Study in Global Corporate Responsibility – Securing Access to Low-cost HIV Medications’, Journal of Business Ethics 73, 65-75.
Fox, T.: 2001, ‘Relationships with NGOs Have Been Fundamental to Many Corporations’ Social Responsibility Programs’, Monday Developments 19(17).
Fox R. and J. Fox: 2004, ‘Organizational Discourse – A language-Ideology-Power Perspective’, Praeger, Westport, CT.
Frankental, P.: 2001, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility – a PR invention? Corporate Communications: An International Journal 6(1), 18-23.
Franklin, D.: 2008, ‘JUST Good Business’, The Economist
Friedman, M.: 1970, ‘The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits’, The New York Times Magazine
Gruskin S., E. J. Mills and D. Tarantola: 2007, ‘History, Principles, and Practice of Health and Human Rights’, The Lancet 370(9585), 449–455
Hartsough, K., D. E. Rosan and L. Sachs: 2006, ‘Benchmarking AIDS: Evaluating Pharmaceutical Company Responses to the Public Health Crisis in Emerging Markets’, The Corporate Examiner 34(6–7).
Hemingway, C. A., and P.W. Maclagan: 2004, ‘‘Managers’ Personal Values as Drivers of Corporate Social Responsibility’, Journal of Business Ethics 50, 33.
Kallio, T. J.: 2007, ‘Taboos in Corporate Social Responsibility Discourse’, Journal of Business Ethics 74, 165-175.
Kearns, D.: 1986, ‘Quality Improvement Begins at the Top’, World 20(5).
Ketola, T.: 2008, ‘A Holistic Corporate Responsibility Model: Integrating Values, Discourses and Actions’, Journal of Business Ethics 80, 419-435.
Khosla, R., P. Hunt: 2009, ‘Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in Relation to Access To Medicines – The Sexual and Reproductive Health Context’, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, Essex.
Kolk, A. and R. van Tulder: 2002, ‘International Codes of Conduct: Trends, Sectors, Issues and Effectiveness’, Erasmus University, Rotterdam.
Lambell, R., G. Ramia, C. Nyland, and M. Michelotti: 2008, ‘NGOs and international business research: Progress, prospects and problems’, International Journal of Management Reviews 10(1), 75-92.
Leisinger, K.M.: 2005, ‘The Corporate Social Responsibility of the Pharmaceutical Industry: Idealism Without Illusion and Realism Without Resignation’, Business Ethics Quarterly 15(4), 577-594.
Leisinger, K. M.: 2007, ‘Corporate Philanthropy: The “Top of the Pyramid”‘, Business and Society Review 112(3), 315-342.
Leisinger, K. M.: 2008, ‘Corporate Responsibilities for Access to Medicines’, Journal of Business Ethics Online, http://www.springerlink.com/content/01011u4800734242/fulltext.pdf.
Levy, D.L.: 1999, ‘Environmental Management as Political Sustainability’, Organization and Environment 10(2), 126-147.
Maire, J.: 2002, ‘A Model of characterization of the performance for a process of benchmarking’, Benchmarking 9(5), 506-520.
Maire, J., V. Bronet, and M. Pillet: 2005, ‘A typology of “best practices” for a benchmarking process’, Benchmarking 12(1), 45-60.
Márquez, A., C. J. Fombrun: 2005, ‘Measuring Corporate Social Responsibility’, Corporate Reputation Review 7(4), 304-308.
Maynard, M.L.: 2001, ‘Policing Transnational Commerce: Global Awareness in the Margins of Morality’, Journal of Business Ethics 30: 17-27.
McWilliams, A. and D. Siegel: 2000, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Performance: Correlation or Misspecification?’ Strategic Management Journal 21, 603-609.
McWilliams, A. and D. Siegel: 2001, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility: A theory of the Firm Perspective’, The Academy of Management Review, 26(1), 117-127.
McWilliams, A., D. S. Siegel and P.M. Wright: 2006, ‘“Guest Editors” Introduction – Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategic Implications’, Journal of Management Studies 43(1).
Menou, V., A. Hornstein, and E. Lipton-McCombie: 2008, ‘Access to Medicines Index – Ranking Access to Medicines Practices, Access to Medicines Foundation, Haarlem, The Netherlands.
Musungu, S. F.: 2006, ‘Benchmarking Progress in tackling the challenges of intellectual property, and access to medicines in developing countries’, Bulletin of the World Health Organization 84(5), 366-370.
Oxfam: Investing for Life: 2007, Meeting Poor People’s Needs for Access to Medicines Through Responsible Business Practices. Oxfam Briefing Paper No. 109, London, November 27, 2007.
Parker, M.: 2003, ‘Introduction: Ethics, Politics and Organizing’, Organization 10(2), 187-203.
Pharmaceutical Shareowners Group: 2004, ‘The Public Health Crisis in Emerging Markets: An Institutional Investor Perspective on the Implications of the Pharmaceutical Industry’, London: PSG.
Porter, M. E., M. R. Kramer: 2006, ‘Strategy and Society – The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility’, Harvard Business Review 84(12), 78–92
Renneboog, F., J. Ter Horst, and C. Zhang: 2008, ‘Socially responsible investments: Institutional aspects, performance, and investor behavior’, Journal of Banking & Finance, 32, 1723-1742.
Resnik, D.B.: 2001, ‘Developing drugs for the developing world: an economic, legal, moral, and political dilemma’, Developing World Bioethics 1(1), 11-32.
Rubin, N.: 2008, ‘The Challenge of Socially Responsible Investments’, The CPA Journal 78(7), 52-55.
Sahlin-Andersson, K: 2006, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility: A Trend and a Movement, but of What and for What?’, Corporate Governance 6(5), 595–608
Starr, M. A.: 2008, ‘Socially Responsible Investment and Pro-social Change’, Journal of Economic Issues 42(1), 51-73.
Swajkowski E.: 1992, ‘Accounting for Organizational Misconduct’, Journal of Business Ethics 11, 401-411.
Sweeney, L., and J. Coughlan: 2008, ‘Do different industries report Corporate Social Responsibility differently? An investigation through the lens of stakeholder theory’, Journal of Marketing Communications 14(2), 113-124.
UN: 2005, ‘Prescription for Healthy Development: Increasing Access to Medicines’, http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/documents/TF5-medicines-Complete.pdf.
UN: 2007a, ‘Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in Relation to Access to Medicines, Draft for Consultation’, Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health (19 September 2007).
UN Press Release: 2007b, ‘UN Independent Expert Launches Draft Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies’ (19 September 2007), http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/497E81A16B31B9C8C125735B0059D7B0?opendocument.
Waddock, S., and S. Graves: 1997, ‘The Corporate Social Performance – Financial Performance Link’, Strategic Management Journal 18(4), 303-319.
World Bank: 1989, ‘Involving Nongovernmental Organizations in World Bank-Supported Activities’, World Bank Operational Manual, Operational Directive 14.70 dated August 28, 1989.
Zadek, S.: 2004, ‘The Path to Corporate Responsibility’, Harvard Business Review 82(12), 125–132.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lee, M., Kohler, J. Benchmarking and Transparency: Incentives for the Pharmaceutical Industry’s Corporate Social Responsibility. J Bus Ethics 95, 641–658 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0444-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0444-y