Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
amplifi ed by pharmaceutical marketing practices, and (3) continued escalation of
confl icts of logics that invite regulatory intervention which constrains and restricts
marketing efforts.
Building on our insights, we develop an open systems view of the pharmaceutical
value chain and contrast it with an economic framework that guides much current
research. We do not propose that the current approaches are fl awed and need to be
abandoned. Current approaches have produced useful insights to guide managerial
action. Our point is that these approaches miss a systems view that provides action
guidelines that differ or counter those resulting from current approaches. Using cur-
rent approaches and system view as two sides of the coin, and conjoining them
when possible, can be effective.
Going forward, conceptualizing and operationalizing legitimacy dimensions
require a shift in focus from organization-centric calculus to a system-centric orien-
tation. For instance, instead of focusing on value
extracted
from its value chain
(e.g., ROI), pragmatic legitimacy attends to value
added
to its value chain. This
does not imply that value extraction is ignored. Rather, value added is given greater
signifi cance in pragmatic legitimacy considerations. Likewise, moral and cognitive
legitimacy are system-centric, requiring focus on evaluations of value chain part-
ners and downstream customers. However, value chain partners are usually dis-
persed and are not easily accessible, making legitimacy assessment less tractable
than ROI calculations. Institutional theorists have provided useful conceptual and
operational advances for assessing organizational legitimacy which can be lever-
aged for developing legitimacy constructs appropriate for marketing contexts
(Suchman
1995
). For instance, Tyler (
2006
) suggests that justice theory concepts of
distributive, interactional, and procedural fairness may be bootstrapped to assess
pragmatic, moral and cognitive dimensions of organizational legitimacy.
In closing, we note that our study holds broader relevance to other markets char-
acterized by confl icted logics and market actors bound by fi duciary responsibility.
Such markets abound in modern civil societies and tend to suffer legitimacy set-
backs with alarming regularity, incurring substantial societal, organizational, and
human costs. We hope that our study highlights the dilemma of such markets and
provides the guiding impetus for future research that provides insights for manage-
rial action with foresight to navigate legitimacy dilemmas.
24.7
Appendix: Background Note on Analysis of Court
Documents for Mapping PM Strategies
Data background.
Several key litigations involving pharmaceutical marketing prac-
tices have been processed in US and international courts including: (a) TAP
Pharmaceuticals who settled its nationwide class action lawsuit by paying $885
million to consumers and insurers, (b) AstraZeneca who pled guilty and paid $335
million for promoting Zoladex, (c) Eli Lilly who was charged for marketing prac-
tices involving Evista and paid $36 million dollars to the US government, and (d)
Search WWH ::
Custom Search