Cure or Sell: How Do Pharmaceutical Industry Marketers Combine Their Dual Mission? An Approach Using Moral Dissonance
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Cure or Sell: How Do Pharmaceutical Industry Marketers Combine Their Dual Mission? An Approach Using Moral Dissonance Bénédicte Bourcier‑Béquaert1 · Loréa Baïada‑Hirèche2 · Anne Sachet‑Milliat3 Received: 3 March 2020 / Accepted: 13 October 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Pharmaceutical industry marketers are confronted with specific ethical issues linked to the tension between the economic interest being pursued and the health mission of this sector. Indeed this dual mission could be problematic for them when the two objectives contradict each other. We use the concept of moral dissonance to examine how marketers in the pharmaceutical industry perceive the profit/health tension inherent in their sector and how they deal with it. Based on narratives of 18 marketers working in the pharmaceutical sector, our qualitative study identifies ethical conflicts of varying intensity that generate differing degrees of moral dissonance among marketers. To cope with this moral dissonance, they use the following strategies: (1) minimize the sensitivity of their activity; (2) invoke the benefits to patients; and (3) avoid behaviors that conflict with their values. Keywords Marketing practitioner · Pharmaceutical industry · Moral dissonance · Self-justifications · Neutralization techniques · Narratives
Introduction The pharmaceutical industry has been shrouded in controversy because of the various scandals associated with it in recent years. For example, the opioid crisis in the US that is estimated to have caused more than 200,000 deaths because of overdosing.1 These ethical issues generally arise from the tension between the profit and health missions to which these organizations are committed (Ravelli 2015; Valverde 2012). Pharmaceutical companies are often considered to have a special moral obligation to society because they can improve health and save lives (Huebner 2014; Maitland * Bénédicte Bourcier‑Béquaert benedicte.bourcier‑[email protected] Loréa Baïada‑Hirèche lorea.baiada‑hireche@imt‑bs.eu Anne Sachet‑Milliat [email protected] 1
ESSCA School of Management, 350 avenue du Club Hippique, 13090 Aix‑en‑Provence, France
2
Université Paris-Saclay, Univ Evry, IMT-BS, LITEM, 91025 Evry‑Courcouronnes, France
3
ISC Paris, Membre associé GRANEM (Université d’Angers), 75017 Paris, France
2002; Nussbaum 2009), even as they pursue their profit objectives. Many of the ethical issues raised in this industry relate to marketing activities: drug prices (Valverde 2012), directto-consumer advertising (Van de Pol and De Bakker 2010), and the relationships between medical representatives and physicians (Cohn et al. 2014; Katamba et al. 2016; Sah and Fugh-Berman 2013; Shaw and Whitney 2016). However, these issues are mainly examined at the industry level, while ignoring the viewpoint of individuals. Little is known about how marketers live and manage, at their level, the ethical conflicts they may face in their jobs, which are due to the twofold mission of their organizations. However, am
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