Value Chain and CSR of Global Pharmaceutical Companies: A Framework to Define Practices

Abstract

This chapter looks at the manner in which global pharmaceutical companies contribute to a better society. To answer this, the authors constructed a framework that allows the responsible practices deployed by the global pharmaceutical companies to be identified along the value chain. This framework offers a heuristic reasoning to facilitate the understanding of the cooperative strategies used by firms and describes the social obligations which companies think they must assume toward society. It is applied through an exploratory study filled with qualitative data obtained through corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports from 2013 of global pharmaceutical companies. At the end, the chapter offers examples from these companies to describe their CSR projects and derives an overall picture of pharmaceutical companies’ contribution toward society in the post-financial crisis.