Corporate social responsibility practices in the pharmaceutical industry

Alan D. Smith

Alan D. Smith is a University Professor of Operations Management based at Robert Morris University, Pittsburgh, USA.

Introduction
Competitive native of the pharmaceutical industry The USA pharmaceutical industry is under immense pressure by external and internal stakeholders with hopes of developing and distributing pharmaceuticals and drug-related products and services in a cost efcient manner, yet maintaining healthy prot margins. As in any industry, producing products and services efciently means lowering the price, developing signicant products and services faster, and improving upon quality initiatives. These companies must continually emphasize effort and investments in R&D in order to remain competitive in the global marketplace (Porter, 1991, 1996, 1999, 2001a,b). Economic and political constraints provide constant challenges for pharmaceutical companies to address and react to on top of internal organizational issues. These organizations must also take in account the ability to be socially responsible to the external stakeholders to address these constraints (Murphy and Poist, 2002; Quinn and Norton, 2004; Schaefer, 2004; Smith, 2007). Pharmaceutical rms typically utilize tactics that involve preferential pricing, safe development of drugs and donations amongst societies in need of help are some of the strategies they can deploy. Concern for social responsibilities In todays changing business world, companies cannot be measured on prots alone. The external environment can play a major role in the perceived value and success of an organization. Managers should be concerned about social responsibilities, since it gives the company a right to exist based on their responsiveness to the external environment. Several outside stakeholders may inuence the development of an organizations mission and goals. In general, the external stakeholders demand the company act in the best interest of the greater good of society. The inside stakeholders have the responsibility of balancing the competing claims of the outsiders against one another to protect the company mission; the internal stakeholders include the executives, board of directors, stockholders, and employees. The effort to improve social responsiveness can enhance the rms long-term viability in terms of intangible strategic assets, such as reputation, employee know how, and corporate culture through the Resource-based View (RBV) of the rm (Michalisin et al., 1997, 2000). An application of the RBV strategy suggests that the rms resources are the main determinant of competitive advantage and rm protability, and it is up to management to isolate those resources that are truly strategic and formulate an empirical model to test the validity of this hypothesis. The four traits shared by strategic assets, based on the RBV, are that they are valuable, rare, non-substitutable, and inimitable. Although current literature on RBV does not specify a general consensus of which of the rms resources would meet these classications, the RBV postulates that in addition to the qualications listed above, strategic assets are also intangible, which considerably limits the possible classes of assets that t all of the prescribed qualications. The intangibility of resources can contribute to their

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DOI 10.1108/17515630810923612

strategic nature since, as being intangible, they are rare (they cannot be purchased in the open market) and they are difcult to imitate as they are difcult to observe. Certainly the case for CSR strategies as generating good will and reputation among its stakeholders could be made under the RBV approach. The pharmaceutical industry is presented with difcult challenges economically and politically in the global market. Customers, governments, and the general public are among the most demanding outside stakeholders that affect the industry. Organizations utilizing corporate social responsibility (CSR) tactics should receive the following benets: increases community goodwill, improving the company image, attracts social responsibility-oriented investors, and prevent new government regulations. Perhaps the major reasons behind the emergence of social responsibility among companies are because of the resurgence of environmentalism, globalization of business, scrutizing the roles of big businesses shape the political arena, and the increase of buyer power. In the 1990s, corporate behavior adapted to the emergent movement of social protests and responsibilities which demanded procedural and management systems by stakeholders to achieve activism to social responsibility. Even situations today, including the Enron scandal, raise awareness for shareholders to act in the best practices of an organization. Shareholder groups now have the responsibility to vote on CSR-based issues amongst things like investing and divesting. CSR groups have to address social issues by going through a proxy voting process established within organization which includes: social issue resolution proposal to the company, the stakeholders, and arguments to support it. A company will have the opportunity to review the proposal and reject it, omit it, or process it. In a survey produced by the IRRC (Investor Responsibility Research Center, which was founded in 1972 and is a leading source of information on corporate governance and social responsibility) in the USA (Connor et al., 2003), it illustrated an increase in proposals for CSR issues concerning pharmaceutical pricing has increased 44 percent from 2001 to 2002, which enforces the idea that companies are becoming aware of the such demands from stakeholders. It is particularly difcult for pharmaceutical companies to allocate its strategic resources necessary to CSR strategies, due to so much of its funds are allocated for R&D and promotional activities, which are relatively risky in nature. It is a difcult task to forecast the particular demand of pharmaceutical products and services in todays changing environment, but to forecast on a long-term basis and globally is even a bigger challenge. The demand for its products is based on consumer motivation, which can vary greatly amongst different countries depending on the responsibilities of consumers, government and economies, and insurance companies or a mix of the three. Patent protection provides a company with a narrow time frame of sustaining an advantage, since, for example, a typical product may be patented for 20 years and it may take approximately 12 years for it to hit the market once done through the testing phases. Following that logic, it now gives a company eight years to try and recover the expenses of twelve years of product development.

Pharmaceutical companies case studies

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was founded by John K. Smith in the 1800s with its original emphasis on laxative drugs in England and has established a rich history in the pharmaceutical industry. In 1972 scientists at the Beecham research laboratories discover amoxicillin and start to market Amoxil to treat infections. In 1978 saw Meyer Laboratories Inc. help to start the USA business called Glaxo Inc. A community partnership was established in 1996 by SmithKline Beecham to focus on community-based healthcare. In 1998, the World Health Organization (WHO) and SmithKline Beecham announced a collaboration to help eliminate lymphatic lariasis by the year 2020. By 2000, GSK (www.gsk.com) was formed from a merger between Glaxo and SmithKline Beecham. In general, GSK has introduced many

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medicines and also purchased several companies along the way to help them reach the status of a global company. GSK is a global company whose headquarters are located in the UK and has major operations in the USA, as well as operates in 117 countries, has 92 manufacturing facilities and has 20 research and development facilities. GSK also employs a total of 101,000 employees. When looking at company statistics for GSK, they hold approximately 7 percent of the worlds pharmaceutical market. In 2003, they had sales of 35.2 billion and total pharmaceutical turnover grew by ve percent. Pharmaceutical sales in the USA accounted for 44 percent, Europe 24 percent, International 17 percent, and consumer healthcare was 15 percent. Hence, GSK is a research-based pharmaceutical company who wants to develop and deliver the best medicines possible to its patients by offering leadership in anti-infective agents, central nervous system, respiratory, and gastrointestinal/metabolic areas. Not only does GSK offer treatment in these areas, but it also has a consumer healthcare portfolio which focuses on over the counter medicines and oral medications. The consumer healthcare portfolio division is an industry leader and is growing steadily. On the surface at least, GSK appears to be a well-rounded company that has a customer management (CRM) approach to promote its product lines. Over the past decade, for example, a heated controversy has developed in the UK between the pharmaceutical industry and the European Commission (EC) involving direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription and over-the-counter medications (Metzl, 2007; Mintzes et al., 2002; Parker and Pettijohn, 2003). Pharmaceutical companies claim that such advertising would heighten awareness of drugs available, while elements of the UK government argue that such advertising would increase the overall cost of healthcare and mislead the vulnerably ill population within the UK. Calfee (2002) and Bell et al. (2000) presented in-depth studies outlining what types of information were provided by direct-to-consumer drug advertisements in some of the major popular magazines in the USA Specically, the study performed by Bell et al. (2000) examined 320 identical advertisements covering 101 distinct brands of medications. Figures 1 and 2 display extracted aspects of selected results of the study, with medical condition representing the major content of advertising about medical condition (Figure 1). The majority of the advertising supplied the name and symptoms of the condition being treated, but neglected to report details about the conditions precursors, prevalence within the population, or to clarify misconceptions about the condition (as illustrated in Figure 2). Also, the advertising Figure 1 Categories of content of advertising about medical condition

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Figure 2 Categories of treatment regimens in advertising about medical condition

rarely provided information about the drugs mechanism of action, rate of success, duration of treatment, alternative treatments, or lifestyle changes that may improve the overall health of the affected patients. Clearly from an objective standpoint, the results of this study may support the ECs stated opposition in that the underlying goal of advertising of pharmaceuticals and drug-related products and services is to increase sales and not to educate the public concerning medically responsible decisions. As previously mentioned, CSR has become a very important issue in the pharmaceutical industry in terms of what content-related information should be provided to the consuming public about its products and services. To help deal with these issues, many companies, including GSK, are requiring employees to be properly trained and to follow standards set by upper management to promote sound social responsibility in the workplace as reected in their mission statements. By promoting sustaining economic performance and operating in an environmentally responsible manner, many hope to convince their stakeholders that they manage CSR with their company needs as reected in a strongly worded mission statement. For example, in 2003, GSK adopted CSR principles which help employees to identify key corporate responsibility issues. By enabling these principles and having a strong mission statement, they are hoping that their employees are more focused and aware of the importance of the image that their company maintains these standards of the company; namely CSR principles of employment practices, human rights, access to medications, leadership and advocacy, community investment, engagement with stakeholders, standards of ethical conduct, research and innovation, products and customers, and caring for the environment. According to Donald McHenry who is the chairman of the corporate responsibility committee, as reected on the companys website, GSK and the pharmaceutical sector in general needs to demonstrate responsibility and has taken steps to increase awareness of CSR issues and clear structures for managing them. This committee has reviewed issues concerning the community, advertising, political activity; as well as focusing on important humanitarian issues for low cost programs for disease control in the developing world. The committee then reports to the board of directors with any improvements or concerns that they have. Employees can come to them with questions or even if patients have questions they are there to help them out when necessary. For a company to survive and be responsible, they must have experts outside the company and perhaps outside the corporate environment to reach a balanced socially responsible platform.

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Specic CSR-related initiatives at GSK Economics. Typically management at GSK not only follow their legal obligations regarding business ethics, they have found that the obligations derived from responsibilities associated with the discovery, development, manufacturing, and marketing of medical supplies and services inherently involve questions of ethical dilemmas that must be answered. The constant presence of powerful lobbyists that promote the pharmaceutical sector and their interests runs counter to the pressure by government agencies to reduce healthcare expenditures. How the companies executives and employees handle these issues dene to a certain degree the integrity of its CSR-related policies and practices. During the interview process with upper management at GSK, several stated that they are determined to operate within the laws in the countries in which they operate; especially in light of the fact that the pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare industry is a highly regulated industry. GSK has their own internal policies to help ensure that everyone from their employees to their suppliers adhere to GSKs ethical standards. As advertised on the companies website, they regard that anticompetitive corporate practices undermines fair competition, inhibits economic development and is general bad for business and people. GSK also has internal policies on anticompetitive behavior. GSK typically expects their employees and supplier to uphold these policies. They believe that the suppression of antitrust activities and the promotion of fair competition laws help to maintain a competitive economy and that it is important to have free and open competition. As one executive suggested, the management at GSK believe that they have had success because of their high quality of their products and services. Therefore, they believe in preventing corruption by being in compliance with the USA and UK legislation initiatives and establishing their own internal policies designed to prevent corruption. GSKs internal audit system was initially designed to enable them to identify and deal with infringements of these policies. Their internal polices also allows them to appropriate disciplinary action against any GSK employee or supplier that violates their corruption policy. Societal concerns. Most importantly, GSK appears to value its own internal customers, namely their employees. Since major pharmaceutical rms have many employees in many countries, their practices should be designed to promote the best ethical behaviors form its employees through a variety of incentive programs. Since several management executives suggested that it is vital to the success of their business and the key source of their competitive advantage. GSK generally recruits and retains their employees by training, development, and a supportive work environment. The management at GSK also actively supports human rights. GSK believes in following the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the core labor standards set out by the International Labor Organization. The management team parallels governmental agencies contention that corporations have the right and responsibility to enforce standards for legal human rights. GSK believes that an organization is led by it own values and ethics. GSK states on its web site that As a science-based company GSK believes that the rights, dignity and safety of people using our products, both during and after their development, are paramount (www.gsk.com). GSK states that they have to control and supervise the safety of their products in order to protect the patient. GSK believes that humanity should share in the benets of science. Although GSK is a marketer of pharmaceutical products that are life saving and have life enhancing elements, they also attempt to make the pharmaceutical products obtainable whenever possible. However, they must run their business in a sustainable way. The practices at GSK suggest that bettering healthcare in developing countries is vital in supporting their principles; GSK does not supply medicines in countries where the law makes it unfeasible to follow their own value and ethic standards. GSK aims to provide their medicines and their vaccines in all countries that purchase them, and they believe that if they did not do this then it would be unethical. R&D activities. GlaxoSmithKline aims to produce safe and effective medicines and vaccines that benet patients by addressing their unmet medical needs (www.gsk.com). GSK uses current advances in science and technology to interpret how the new test drugs

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will help patents have the best treatment for their disease. Since many R&D activities are extremely regulated throughout the world, there must be internal standards and a working relationship with regulators and policy makers to ensure that they comply with global regulations and legal requirements. For example, animal testing is important when developing new medicines for potential patients. Animal testing allows pharmaceutical companies to comprehend the disease and it will help evaluate the potency and safety of these potential new medicines. Animal testing typically occurs before these potential new medicines are given to humans. However, some companies do conduct research without using animals. These methods consist of computer modeling and isolating cells and tissues. The management at GSK suggests that unfortunately using these methods on non-living entities do not evaluate the potency and safety of these potential drugs, but they suggested that they are committed tohumane care and treatment of all laboratory animals. Again, GSK has their own ethical code of practice in regards to animal testing that contain higher standard than the current laws. Many pharmaceutical rms conduct genetic research to gain insight into disease and they try to determine why patients react differently to medicines. The research is done to identify, prevent and treat disease. Currently, GSK is conducting genetic research to identify genes, which could help diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Once this is accomplished, GSK can create new drugs. This involves researching the relationship between genetic variability and a patients response to medicine, referred to as pharmacogenetics, and is useful in understanding how a patient may respond to a particular treatment. The ndings will be used in drug development and potentially in the clinics. Once the drugs are available in the clinic, patients will actually be able to be treated with minimal and/or safe amounts of the medicine. GSK is an industry leader in the science and technology of medical genetic research. GSK needs to understand how genetic factors inuence health and disease in order to develop safe and more effective drugs for patients.

Case study: Bayer Corporation

Bayer Corporation (BC) is a multi-national pharmaceutical rm with over 100,000 employees worldwide, incorporates a philosophy of corporate social responsibility into their long-term objectives. Bayers goal is to grow the value of the company and generate value to the stockholders, employees, and society in all countries of operation. Based on a number of interviews of middle to upper management at BC, they strategically promote the commitment to CSR as it will ultimately contribute to the companys success. These values are imbedded within Bayers corporate culture, and derived from the companys mission and overall strategy, which are expressed each year in their Sustainable Developmental Report (SDR). Bayer has eight objectives in maintaining its commitment to CSR, which allow socially responsible activities to enhance the attractiveness of investment and pension funds, diversify with ethically sustaining corporations, and contributes to a positive evaluation from various rating agencies. These objectives are geared towards shareholders, who value increased wealth. Also BC, as other pharmaceutical rms, aims to enhance customer loyalty, maintain a stable business environment, control risk management, and attract well educated, highly skilled employees. With these operationally motivated objectives, BC seeks to maximize longevity of organizational existence. The management at BC attempts to maintain an impeccable public image through demonstrating its adaptability to social developments and through differentiation from competition by obtaining a forefront position in community projects. BCs efforts to practice social responsibility will be recognized by industry leaders, politicians, scientists, and society, therefore, increasing public perception; thus establishing a strategic advantage through the RBV by reputation. As BC rigorously applies corporate social responsibility within its strategy, BC relies heavily upon its employees abilities, motivation and willingness to accept change, to implement polices which help solve societal issues. BC values their corporate culture, and maintains innovative incentives to help practice social responsibility to its employees. A unique compensation concept allows BCs employees to receive both xed and variable wages,

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which allows them to participate in the companys success. Employees can participate in exible work schedules, which allow them to meet the demands of every day family life. Balancing family and career can be a daunting task; so many employees may choose to work from home. BC also incorporates a program for employees, which assist them in nding quality daycare for their children, or care for elderly family members in need. Employee advancement is highly valued through BCs Equal Opportunity task force. This specically gives equal opportunities for job growth and development within the company, with results of a higher proportionate of women now in managerial roles. BC also values supporting its employees outside the work environment, with a quality of life program. This program assists employees with nancial support, drug counseling, legal advice and debt management assistance to name a few. BCs social commitment encompasses many programs, across various continents. These commitments are environmentally, socially, and economically friendly. BC, with headquarters in Germany, practices a decentralized form of management. Foreign subsidiaries are empowered to participate in whatever socially responsible programs deemed necessary. A few programs BC participates in are UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), UN Global Compact Initiative, Medicines for Malaria Venture with the WHO, and Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS. BCs participation in UNEP provides young individuals with experience in environmental protection, focusing on industry, households, and government. The goal is to familiarize them with modern industrial product, and the concept of sustainable development. Participation in the UNs Global Compact Initiative seeks to make principles such as human rights, labor standards, and environmental protection the basis for corporate actions. BC recently restructured the organization to align itself within the structure of this initiative. For example, one thing BC did was implementing the SUPREME (Supplier Relationship Management) system, which evaluates the 25,000-member supply chain. BC observes the working conditions, environmental standards, and human rights issues in rms within its supply chain. The WHO initiative Medicines for Malaria Venture, with the help of BC, develops a new malaria drug with the ingredient artemisone, which BC holds patent rights to. BC will develop and supply product, while the WHO will solely distribute. The price for the product would be set at a level that would allow malaria sufferers in developing countries, such as Uganda and Zambia, to receive treatment. BCs participation in the ght against AIDS has prompted them to join the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS. Much of BCs pharmaceutical research revolves around HIV/AIDS. BCs participation in these socially responsible programs has not gone unnoticed. In 2002, the Oekom Institute regarded BC as the third best pharmaceutical company worldwide in terms of ecological and social issues. This study involved the 22 largest pharmaceutical rms around the world. On top of these large-scale, global programs, BC participates in many localized programs as well. For example, BC developed Making Science Make Sense. This programs goal is to advance science literacy within the younger population. BC provides monetary and classroom resources to children within 34 of 43 school districts within Pittsburghs Allegheny County. This ensures BC has a talent pool from which to draw down the road, by making children think critically and creatively. Environmental responsibility is an issue BC has been trying to improve over time, and has enacted in process production processes that have enhanced environmental protection. BCs goal is to produce products which will not harm humans, animals or the environment during production, use, or disposal. BCs efforts were recognized within the United States with the presentation of the Responsible Care Leadership Award. This award recognizes outstanding achievement in environmental protection and safety for chemical companies. BCs image came under heavy political and social scrutiny in 2001. The drug Baycol, a cholesterol-lowering medicine developed by BC, was causing a severe and sometimes fatal muscle disorder (Business Respect, 2003). The turn of events that happened in 2001 has prompted BC to alter its strategic outlook of CSR to what it is today. There is striking evidence that BC knew of the risks associated with the drug three months prior to putting Baycol on the

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open market. Various public documents, such as e-mail messages, memos, and depositions indicate BC knew of the side effects relating to a rare muscle condition. The result of this negligence was more than 10,000 lawsuits by patients against BC and their partner GSK, both BC and GSK have settled some of the cases, but the negative effects are still lingering. BC eventually took Baycol off the shelves, but not after serious damage had already occurred. There is a ne line for pharmaceutical rms when practicing CSR and BC learned that lesson with Baycol, if not properly managed could potentially tarnish a companys image forever. For this reason, pharmaceutical rms must incorporate CSR into their strategies, but must follow those values set forth in the mission. In this case, BC did not, and paid a heavy price. In todays business world, companies cannot be measured on prots alone. The external environment can play a major role in the perceived value and success of an organization. The organizations mission and goal must also be addressed by outside stakeholders. In the long run corporate social responsibility will take a bigger role in the pharmaceutical industry, companies are going to get more aware of CSR amongst investing their resources. Environmental responsibility is an issue BC has been trying to improve over time. BC participates in large- scale, global programs and also in many localized programs in order to overcome their CSR strategies. BC has a strong corporate culture which heavily incorporates a philosophy of corporate social responsibility into their long-term objectives.

General recommendations and conclusions

Pharmaceutical companies must implement CSR principles in their strategies. Prots have a major role in the industry but in order to obtain higher prots in the long run, pharmaceutical companies must build high brand name awareness and therefore high company awareness towards consumers. An approach that strategically grounded in the RBV concept is to become more socially responsible towards consumers and the environment. We believe that long term strategies must be outlined with social responsibility principles. Due to the complexity of the aforementioned controversies, the solution to end this debate is not cut and dry. There are several potential alternatives that the USA and UK governmental agencies may consider when deciding whether pharmaceutical companies should be permitted to advertise directly to the public in a socially responsible manner. To promote this concept, a proposition to establish a nationally funded agency that provides federal guidelines for the contents and amount of information that each ad must contain, how long it can run, and how much can be spent annually by each pharmaceutical company is recommended. The process for reviewing advertisements would be similar to the ones already established by the European Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (EMHRA). The ad would be submitted, reviewed for 30 days, and either accepted/rejected for publishing according to the guidelines. Submitting ads for review would allow the government to control the type of information that the consumers are exposed to. The Agency could develop their own mix of how much of the ad should be patient education and how much could be directed at developing a customer base. Since the pharmaceutical companies are using patient education as a tool to lobby for direct-to-consumer advertising, the regulatory agency should make them responsible to their platform. The ads should contain the following information: the name of the drug, the symptoms indicating pharmacological therapy, the prevalence of the medical condition, the duration of treatment, the success rate, potential adverse reactions, contraindications, the amount of time it takes for the drug to become effective, the potential dosages, alternate behaviors that could promote improvement of the medical condition, price range, ways to request more information, and how to obtain a prescription of the medication/encouragement to seek the advice from a professional. Another suggestion for pharmaceutical companies is to focus on a push strategy of marketing. This strategy encourages advertising directly to the physicians that prescribe the drugs via medical journals and magazines such as the British Journal of Medicine. However, the type of

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information would have to be enhanced from the list above to include mechanism of action and other technical aspects of the medication. Finally, in order to ensure patient safety and to provide the patients with as much information as possible, the UK government should establish laws that force pharmaceutical companies to include informational leaets in the packaging of all prescriptions. Therefore, patients and consumers would have no excuse but to be informed about the drug that they are taking. Specically, both BC and GSK should conduct future research studies in this subject in order to support the importance of corporate social responsibility in the pharmaceutical industry. Consumer support surveys can be made within the organizations in order to analyze the value employees give to CSR. Other studies may be made outside of these organizations to examine the importance consumers are given in companys initiatives, such as determining what percent of their decision of buying a new drug is driven from a CSR-based strategy of the pharmaceutical industry. In addition, it is recommended that pharmaceutical companies build brand name loyalty in order to build long-term customer relationships, especially through CSR actions. While advertising on new drugs, these rms can also display the importance that they give to CSR, promote their socially responsible programs, and increase the awareness of consumers towards positive social responsibility strategies. These rms should educate their employees towards the value-added processes that accompany CSR-based strategies. The internal as well as the external stakeholders of the pharmaceutical industry should also buy in the concepts of being socially responsible. CSR should be strongly supported in the company culture; thus including CSR in the training process of new employees and reinforcing the concepts to existing employees.

References
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Porter, M.E. (1999), Creating advantage, Executive Excellence, Vol. 16 No. 11, pp. 13-14. Porter, M.E. (2001a), Strategy and the Internet, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 79 No. 3, pp. 62-78. Porter, M.E. (2001b), Competition and antitrust: toward a productivity-based approach to evaluating mergers and joint ventures, Antitrust Bulletin, Vol. 46 No. 4, pp. 919-59. Quinn, L. and Norton, J. (2004), Beyond the bottom line: practicing leadership for sustainability, Leadership in Action, Vol. 24, pp. 3-7. Schaefer, A. (2004), Corporate sustainability integrating environmental and social concerns, Corporate Social-Responsibility and Environmental Management, Vol. 11, pp. 179-88. Smith, A.D. (2007), Making the case for the competitive advantage of corporate social responsibility (CSR), Handbook of Business Strategy (Business Strategy Series), Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 186-95.

Further reading
May, E. (2004), Corporate citizenship, Healthcare Executive, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 44-8. ORourke, A. (2003), A new politics of engagement: shareholder activism for corporate social responsibility, Business Strategy and the Environment, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 227-32. Pearce, J.A. and Robinson, R.B. (2005), Strategic Management: Formulation, Implementation, and Control, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, New York, NY. Placet, M., Anderson, R. and Fowler, K.M. (2005), Strategies for sustainability, Research Technology Management, Vol. 48, pp. 32-41. Porter, M.E. (1981), The contributions of industrial organization to strategic management, The Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management, Vol. 6 No. 4, pp. 609-21. Porter, M.E. (1998), Clusters and the new economics of competition, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 76 No. 6, pp. 77-90. Smith, A.D. (2004a), Information exchanges associated with internet travel marketplaces, Online Information Review, Vol. 28 No. 4, pp. 292-300. Smith, A.D. (2004b), Manufacturing workers: exploring the ability to change, International Journal of Management and Enterprise Development, Vol. 1 No. 3, pp. 251-67. Stein, P. and Valery, E. (2004), Competition: an antidote to the high price of prescription drugs, Health Affairs, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 151-2.

Corresponding author
Alan D. Smith can be contacted at: smitha@rmu.edu

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