BAP61 The Marketing Campaign

Read the provided Case Study – An Unethical Culture in Need of Change: TAP Pharmaceuticals. Answer BOTH of the following questions. Each answer should be between 250 -300 words

Question One

Analyse the ethical culture at TAP. Does the culture appear to be in alignment Misalignment.

Question Two
Based on the facts in the case evaluate the culture change effort that Douglas Durand undertook. Why did his efforts fail.

The culture in TAP does not appear to be in alignment due to various ethical conduct from the case which includes the following: TAP Company had no inside legal counsel governing the marketing campaign before being launched. The Company considered the governing legal counsel as a no requirement department which is unethical. With no such governing body in the organization, marketing of drugs where some even does not meet the standards may be made possible which in turn may compromise the set standards upon launching such drugs (Shaw and Whitney, 2016).

Bribing in TAP is another unethical conduct where Durand found himself in a conference where sales representatives openly discussed bribing the urologists in order to encourage prescription of Lupron a new drug for prostate cancer by the company. Fair competition in the pharmaceutical industry should be embraced by the TAP Company with no possibility of bribery so as to encourage the prescription of the drugs in order to realise more sales which is an unethical conduct (Skandrani and Sghaier, 2016).

            TAP sales representatives also engaged in giving doctors Lupron samples at a discount or for free without accounting for the single doses given. The act is unethical which when realized can lead to heavy fines.

From the above unethical practices in the Company, it is with no doubt that the Company’s culture is not in alignment and immediate transition of the Company is required so as to adhere with the correct ethical practices.

The Culture change effort that Douglas undertook on TAP Company and the causes of their Failure

            Douglas Durand took the following effort in order to change the Company’s culture: Douglas made an effort of winning the physicians trust as the vice president of the Company. This would have helped to impact the physicians positively, for example, the importance of valuing ethical conducts while carrying out duties but rather than embracing his idea, the physicians ignored him.

            Douglas also tried to influence change on TAP Company according to their way by offering bonuses to the sales representatives who agreed to abide by the policy of keeping accurate records of their samples. The effort actually bore fruits but it was cut short where the senior management discontinued the bonus which in turn stopped the sales representatives from keeping track (Thau et al. 2016).

            Douglas effort to transform TAP Company failed due to various reasons which include the following: The working team for the Company had adopted the ongoing culture and embraced it hence changing their view and perception would be difficult (Effelsberg and Solga 2015). The senior management at TAP rather than supporting Douglas on his effort on change ended the bonus program on the sales representatives expected to uphold transparency through accurate record keeping. This, therefore, became more difficult for Douglas to continue with his effort on change since he had no backup especially from the senior management where he was even being excluded from the meetings. The limiting factors to change clearly depicts that the Company was not ready for change despite Douglas’s efforts.

References

Effelsberg, D. and Solga, M., 2015. Transformational leaders’ in-group versus out-group orientation: Testing the link between leaders’ organizational identification, their willingness to engage in unethical pro-organizational behavior, and follower-perceived transformational leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 126(4), pp.581-590.

Shaw, B. and Whitney, P., 2016. Ethics and compliance in global pharmaceutical industry marketing and promotion: The role of the IFPMA and self-regulation. Pharmaceuticals Policy and Law, 18(1-4), pp.199-206.

Skandrani, H. and Sghaier, M., 2016. The dark side of the pharmaceutical industry. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 34(7), pp.905-926.

Thau, S., Derfler-Rozin, R., Pitesa, M., Mitchell, M.S. and Pillutla, M.M., 2015. Unethical for the sake of the group: Risk of social exclusion and pro-group unethical behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(1), p.98.