The new dynamics between the state, local ideals, and (anti-)corruption: an ethnographic study of the ethical practices of China's pharmaceutical industry

Abstract

ABSTRACT The infamous GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) bribery case of 2013 led to the emergence of compliance management as a local strategic response to ensuring compliance with regulations in the transnational pharmaceutical corporations within China. However, China's pharmaceutical industry has a long history of practicing the corrupt customs of “drug-incentivizing medicine” (yiyao buyi) and “guanxi-based sales” (guanxi xiaoshou), which are, obviously, at odds with the highest ethical standards for compliance management as well as the principle of the anti-corruption campaign of the current Chinese administration. Based upon an in-depth ethnographic work from China's pharmaceutical industry, this article proposes a new framework to examine the complicated dynamics of interaction between the state's anti-corruption policy, corrupt long-standing customary industrial practices, local cultural practice, and global compliance management norms in post-socialist spaces. Different from some studies that focus on the resistance to global norms by local forces, this study suggests a reverse direction and focuses on the positive reconstruction of the old socialist ideals and corrupt practices by modern disciplinary institutions with the capitalist work ethic in the Chinese workplace.