Ethics and corporate responsibility in pharmaceutical companies

hypothetical firm -- Pharmacare -- and address the issues of corporate responsibility and ethics. Background Information on Case
New Jersey-based company, Pharmacare (We CARE about YOUR health®) counts among the leading pharmaceutical firms across the globe. It is reputed for being an ethical, well-managed and caring corporation that manufactures superior-quality products aimed at saving the lives of millions and enhancing the QOL (quality of life) of millions of other people. Its offering constitutes discounted and free medicines to people with low income. Furthermore, the company has a charity sponsoring scholarships and health education programs. Pharmacare's Chief Executive is a Phrma (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) board member (Background Information). A short while ago, the organization commenced a novel program "We CARE about YOUR world®" in which it vows to adopt green practices such as recycling and packaging changes to demonstrate its responsibility to safeguard the environment. This step has been taken in spite of the successful baffling of environmental rules and laws by the organization's lobbying attempts and Political Action Committee (PAC); this includes the Superfund tax's extension (the tax was established under the 1980 CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act)). Pharmacare has a huge production unit located in Colberia, an African country where it can employ the services of a number of "healers" keen on sharing free information on native medicines. Additionally, in Colberia, a large labor force ready to do work -- that is, harvest plants and walk for a total distance of five miles daily, to and fro between the forest and the manufacturing unit, carrying baskets which, when filled, weigh about fifty pounds -- for a mere dollar per day is available. Owing to Colberia's low living standards, a majority of its citizens reside in simple huts without running water or electricity. On the other hand, executives of the company reside in an opulent locale, replete with tennis courts, golf course and swimming pools. The extensive activities of Pharmacare in the Colberian nation have damaged its habitat and threatened the existence of rare native species of flora and fauna. Characteristics of a Stakeholder
The term 'stakeholder' is used to denote any individual, community, institution, or overall society which has stakes in a company. Therefore, clearly, stakeholders are both internal and external. Stakes may be defined as key interests or concerns in an enterprise or the activities it undertakes. This may include property and ownership interests, ethical rights, and legal duties and interests. Legal obligations include a responsibility to fulfill a contract or pay the wages it has promised, on time. Meanwhile, ethical or moral rights include a consumer's right of not being harmed on purpose by an organization's activities. A stakeholder is a person who can: (What Is a Stakeholder in Business? - Definition & Examples - Video & Lesson Transcript - Study.com)

• Impact a company

• Be impacted by the company

• Impact the company as well as be impacted

Stakeholders are frequently compared with shareholders, who are individuals with an ownership-related interest. Stakeholder theory was majorly impacted by philosopher, R. Edward Freeman's 1984 work Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. The stakeholders in this case would be the company itself, its managers and workforce, and its Colberian facility's executives and workers. Human Rights Issues
The American Congress instituted the federal agency, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) in the year 1970. The agency was made responsible for formulating safety and health standards for organizations. Ever since, key discourse on workplace safety and health has revolved around setting of these public standards. The chief issue is the suitability of cost-benefit analyses for establishing safety and health standards. This appears to be the Colberian facility's chief issue -- the disparity between executives' (i.e., employers') and employees' working conditions, pay, and living standards (Hartman, 2008). People employed by a U.S.-based multinational corporation outside America might be covered under certain American laws; however, enforcement is occasional. In certain instances, organizations operating in other nations face even stricter worker protection laws compared to American laws. For instance, a number of European nations have powerful laws safeguarding due process, worker participation, and other employee rights. However, in numerous other cases, particularly in underdeveloped nations, employees face conditions their counterparts in America would consider dreadful. Whilst individuals employed in the U.S. profit from the long historic battles to ensure workplace health and safety, people employed in a few Southeast Asian nations have to fight even for enjoying the privilege of at-will restroom breaks.

Theorists Bowie and Arnold argue that multinational corporations have to guarantee their employees' physical welfare and avoid damaging their moral and intellectual capacities' development. Respecting the employees working in international plants necessitates adherence to native labor laws, provision of a decent and safe working environment, avoiding the application of force on workers, forty-eight hours of work per week, and provision of wages over the general poverty line, by company-owned and contract plants (Hartman, 2008). Meanwhile, other scholars claim the above conditions must also cover a minimum working age (prevention of child labor), free association (this includes the right of organization and collective bargaining when negotiating contracts) and equal pay to female workers for the same post and other nondiscrimination requirements. Pharmacare's Colberia manufacturing unit needs to incorporate the above rights. Environmental Initiative
It appears that the "We Care About Your World" program of Pharmacare is simply an act of publicity. The firm appears not to be sincerely concerned with upholding its corporate social responsibility. Although the company is addressing environment conservation by implementing packaging alterations and recycling, its Colberian activities are wreaking habitats and threatening species (Writer Thoughts). If the company was sincerely worried about its impacts on the environment, it would first look at the Colberian issue before thinking about matters of secondary importance (recycling, packaging, etc.). The company appears not to commit to protecting Colberia's species or habitats, as this matter would not be visible to the public eye. Emphasis must be given to sustainability, rather than implementing only those practices that bring positive publicity. Environmental programs must reflect sincere, consistent corporate responsibility. Looking at the Actions Using Ethical Theories
Utilitarianism: The utilitarian approach suggests that rational minds mulling over the above ethical problems will not invariably be in accord with regard to the resolution that results in the greatest overall good and even with regard to the 'good' itself (Hartman, 2008). Utilitarianism posits that the ethicality of an action is largely determined by its outcomes. According to utilitarians, an ethically correct act is the greatest act which benefits the maximum possible number of individuals, whereas an ethically wrong act is one that brings harm to the majority. Hence, if one adopts a utilitarian standpoint, Pharmacare is doing nothing unethical, as it actually benefits millions of patients. In spite of the damage done to Colberia and its inhabitants, Pharmacare saves countless lives per annum with its inexpensive medicines.

Deontology: Deontological constraints or rules are moral requirements which demand a specific kind of inaction or action in the right contexts without referring to repercussions, reasons, or motives. (For instance, honor your parents; do not cheat, lie, rob or take another's life; and never break your commitments and promises). A majority of everyday moral guidelines are deontological -- they have been developed as unqualified requirements without referring to particular ends or reasons. Moral systems based on deontology are marked by an emphasis on and firm compliance with independent ethical obligations or rules. The doctrines of right, according to this school of thought, are actively regulative, constraining the course that could otherwise be optimally and rationally chosen for attaining required or acceptable objectives (Rawls, 1971). Thus, according to deontological principles, Pharmacare's actions are unethical.

Virtue Ethics: This approach's overall underlying concept is its emphasis on what course a person ought to opt for, with respect to his/her inner personal behavior (i.e., character) instead of being solely reliant on external cultural customs and rules; if an individual intrinsically possesses a good character, his/her actions and choices automatically have to be good as well (Virtue Ethics). Virtue Ethics' principles have value -- that of directing a person's away from adhering to popular opinion, and paying attention to oneself. From the standpoint of virtue ethics, as Pharmacare is doing what it believes to be right and good for itself and not following particular norms, its actions are ethical.

Ethics of Care or Care Ethics: This feminist philosophical standpoint applies a context-bound and relational approach to decision-making and ethicality. Care ethics denotes ideas that deal with normative ethics as well as ethics' nature. This point-of-view sharply deviates from other ethical models (e.g., utilitarianism, justice theory, and Kant's deontology), which depend on principles for highlighting moral actions. Moreover, care ethics' ruling isn't intended to be incontrovertible and absolute (Dunn and Burton, 2016). Central to this perspective is relationships' particularity. Noddings maintains that all caring relations comprise of no less than two individuals -- the 'cared-for' and the 'one who cares'. This sort of relationship can definitely be a lot more than just dyadic (influence-based); the two individuals involved in such a relationship may begin displaying mutual commitment to one another's welfare. But the distinctive point in every relationship of this sort is: the individual who cares responds to the 'cared-for' individual's perceived needs. This act is inspired by worry for the latter's reality; the former senses and feels what the individual they are caring for experiences, and commits to help him/her. Although Pharmacare's executives (who must actually be 'caretakers') receive superior 'care', Colberia's citizens do not. Thus, according to care ethics, Pharmacare is being unethical.

My Ethic Compass: In my personal opinion, Pharmacare is being completely unethical (Writer Thoughts). An excessive number of human rights problems and the corporate atmosphere itself necessitate extreme ethical reforms. Real World Example
A prominent corporate example is that of petroleum companies' (Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, etc.) exploitation of the poor Niger Delta for its petroleum oil, which was discovered somewhere in the year 1956. During the 1970s, the government of Nigeria started forcing inhabitants to give up their homes and land to the oil giants without consultation, providing hardly any compensation. This land was taken over by the government, which intended to distribute it to oil corporations. Resistance by the natives during the early 1990s took on a violent turn, with protesters threatening to resort to mass action in order to disturb operations (Hynes, 2011). Eventually, the government of Nigeria declared that disturbing the process of oil production constituted treason. Chevron Corporation had a more than 100-strong military base situated at their Delta State facility of Escravos. In the year 1999, when Ikiyan leaders came forward to reach a deal with the company's soldiers, who had already started attacking a number of their villages, the soldiers began shooting at them, and ended up claiming sixty-two lives, including that of a girl aged seven.

PharmaCARE's case is similar to that of Chevron in that both committed acts that undermined human rights and had a negative effect on land use. The cases are different in that Pharmacare, at the very least, tried to rectify its mistakes, whereas Chevron did not.

References

Background Information

Dunn, & Burton. (2016). Britannica.com. Ethics of care - ethics and philosophy - Britannica.com. Retrieved August 18, 2016, from http://www.britannica.com/topic/ethics-of-care

(n.d.). Ethics. Virtue Ethics. Retrieved August 18, 2016, from http://www.ethicsmorals.com/ethicsvirtue.html

Hartman. (2008). Ethical Decision-Making: Employer Responsibilities and Employee Rights. Business Ethics: Decision-Making for Personal Integrity and Social Responsibility. Mcgraw-Hill. Retrieved from http://www.mhlearningsolutions.com/columbia_southern/0078134536/ch6.PDF

Hynes, R. (2011). Top 10 Lists - Listverse. Top 10 Unethical Business Actions - Listverse. Retrieved August 19, 2016, from http://listverse.com/2011/09/13/top-10-unethical-business-actions/

Rawls, J. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

(n.d.). Study.com - Take Online Courses. Earn College Credit. Research Schools, Degrees & Careers. What Is a Stakeholder in Business? - Definition & Examples - Video & Lesson Transcript - Study.com. Retrieved August 18, 2016, from http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-a-stakeholder-in-business-definition-examples-quiz.html

Writer Thoughts