Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility in Pharma: Exploring Strategic Narratives and Everyday Talk

The paradigm of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been persistently changing with the passage of time. This could be attributed to the changing global dynamics and rising coemption in the business market. It is thus crucial for organisations to update their CSR set-ups with their growing businesses, as consumers are now much more aware about CSR responsibility. The pharmaceutical sector is under immense pressure from both internal and external stakeholders who have hopes of developing and distributing drugs in a faster, more efficient way. The pharmaceutical organisations command considerable influence on healthcare initiatives by government agencies and must continually emphasise effort and investments in R&D to compete within a global marketplace. The pharmaceutical industry must take into account the ability to be socially responsible to the external stakeholders. The purpose of this thesis is to develop an understanding for practitioners, managers and academicians with insight to highlight the importance of the changing nature and dynamic of CSR within the pharmaceutical industry. The study follows an interpretive, inductive, ethnographic methodological approach to perform the analysis. This work outlines a review of the literature on CSR in conjunction with its changing nature, drivers and ethics within the pharmaceutical sector to show the development of CSR over time. This thesis is the first study of CSR in the pharmaceutical sector. It makes a significant theoretical contribution by acknowledging the roles of different organisational actors in implementing CSR effectively. The research reviews the behaviour of organisational actors, and their perception of CSR in the context of calling orientation. This increases our knowledge of the importance of making employees an integral part of the process. By examining how organisational actors perceive and react to CSR over time, the research underscores the importance of considering employee calling orientation in evaluating CSR activities. The research suggests that managers must tailor CSR strategies to capitalise on the different employee orientations to ensure collaboration, engagement and success.