Purdue Pharma: Analysis of Business Ethics and its Impact on Success

This report examines the Purdue Pharma case study, focusing on the ethical failures that led to significant consequences. The analysis explores how the company's unethical marketing of OxyContin, a highly addictive painkiller, impacted its revenue, shareholders, and public confidence. The report details how Purdue Pharma prioritized profits over ethical business practices, resulting in legal challenges and a damaged reputation. It analyzes the perspectives of various stakeholders, including shareholders, the board of directors, and the public, highlighting the detrimental effects of unethical behavior on each group. The report also provides recommendations for the company, emphasizing the importance of ethical conduct, transparency, and responsible marketing practices. Ultimately, the report underscores the critical role of business ethics in achieving sustainable success and maintaining public trust. The report also highlights the need for companies to be vigilant and proactive in addressing ethical issues, as failure to do so can lead to severe repercussions.

Academic and
Professional Skills

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
Success in reference to revenue also, it's affection through unethical behaviour ......................1
Success in context of shareholders and affected by unethical behaviour ..................................2
Success from the perspective of the board and how this is affected by unethical behaviour ....3
Success from the perspective of public confidence and how this is affected by unethical
behaviour ....................................................................................................................................3
Recommendation ........................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Success of an organisation is important as it creates good reputation and recognition
among people. If an organisation is following all business ethics and performing it's functions by
adopting correct regulations and rules, then there are more chances of business success. Future of
business depends upon success of the company. Business owners can expand their work if they
are doing successful business. While working towards this success and earning money,
sometimes people forget to think about ethics. This creates huge downfall. Ethics are known as
essential factor for success rate of an organisation (Van Dijk, 2019). Business has to perform
various tasks which are done religiously within business organisation. The case study in the
following assignment is of 'Purdue Pharma' which is owned by Sackler family. This is banned by
more than five states in United Sates. This organisation was charged under misconducting and
misinterpreting of their one of the medicine i.e. 'OxyContin narcotic”. This is a very strong drug
which is pain killer. This organisation has launched various marketing strategies for promoting
this medicine. Due to their effective marketing strategy of promoting products and medicines in
places where people prescribe painkillers, they got great success. This company experienced
huge success in places & cities where subscription of such pain killers is high. After some time,
this organisation was accused for launching medicines in wrong manner and people have started
using their medicine for using it as drug. There were cases of death of many people due to
medicine. There were around 1500 cities which filed a law suit against 'Purdue Pharma'. This
company was accused for marketing and selling of high dosed drug for seek of making more
money and profits. Investigation was conducted and it revealed various aspects of Sackler family
background. They were selling medicines which people are get addicted to and for this they have
been claimed by various people for working against business ethics. Various cities have filled
law suit against Sackler family and this company was ready to give compensated money. People
were not satisfied with this action and they wanted this company to stop selling medicines. This
organisation was involved in disobeying ethical business aspects just for sake of making money.
The board of directors of this company are all their family members and they discussed a lot for
making effective decisions to addressing such issue.
Success in reference to revenue also, it's affection through unethical behaviour
There are various companies despite of having good intentions, these et up unethical
catastrophes by developing environment in which individuals feel forced to make choices.
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Sackler family has been involved in conducting great influence in pharmaceutical places so that
an individual has to conduct various schemes for competing against it. 'Purdue Pharma' has
experienced peak load by developing different levels of integration and performing various non
medical provisions for gaining success. It is essential for companies to follow ethics while doing
business. There is direct impact of profitability of company with treatment of employees, ethical
accounting practices, information disseminated to shareholders and interactions with people.
This is responsibility of all such factors to ensure that business operations or marketing are done
under ethical perspective (Subnaik, Pratt, and Roman, 2015). In the case of Purdue Pharma,
their marketing strategy was very good but they used it in a wrongful manner. They could have
used such marketing efforts for selling right kind of drugs/medicines. When integral parts of a
business are not being performed well with a resounding theme of ethics, there is a great
potential to falter in long or short term of management team of business. Purdue pharma was
showing that it is involved in taking care of customers but actually they were just involved in
targeting potential audiences for the company. As market expectation are high, there is need of
good marketing strategies for selling anything and everything. Thus, it should be taken care by
companies to ensure that they are earning money and profits and also following business ethics
while working. As per a research, there are various ethical behaviours which suggests that
business needs must be transparent. Customers have become more smart and they consume
products of companies which provide healthy and quality products. Unethical behaviour in case
of generating revenue consists of various aspects like using organisation for personal profit or
gain. This organisation has performed business activities which were unethical and due to this
they have to face different legal provisions.
Success in context of shareholders and affected by unethical behaviour
Shareholders are known as integral part of business. They have to face consequences for
any positive as well as negative thing that occurs in business. Shareholders of Purdue Pharma,
they have to perform and guide according to legal regulations and changes that have occurred in
case laws. Shareholders play a key role in guiding management to take best decision and handle
various situations of business. Every person must have clear understanding of presentation of all
things. Shareholders can affect the decisions of company and so they can guide management to
do business operations ethically. Purdue Pharma was involved in various different unethical
tasks for getting it's drug and medicines approved in market. For doing so they were involved in
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different tactics and tricks. It is advisable for such companies to perform all operations ethically
if they don't want to get claimed for unethical functioning. As per shareholders of Purdue
Pharma, unethical behaviour in business was not a considerable issue as they just guided
management to make correct decisions in future and share rates of this company went high and
for them this is success (Sarpatwari, Sinha, and Kesselheim, 2017). According to ethical code of
conduct, shareholders are not involved in any of the activities and they have not provided
guidance for doing right things. The main objective of shareholders in Purdue Pharma was when
they are not able to conclude fact of having acts based on different aspects of business. This
activity was successful and Purdue Pharma made revenue of around 3 billion dollars. But after
some time when this scandal took place, rates of share of Purdue Pharma were decreased.
Shareholders were not satisfied by the outcomes of business.
Success from the perspective of the board and how this is affected by unethical behaviour
Success of any company cannot be evaluated by just sales and profits it has earned, but
there must be proper regulations and ethical norms present while running business. It is advised
for management to provide proper guidelines under which there must be unlimited stages. These
guidelines have great provision and according to which an individual has to perform and work as
per correct rules and regulations. Board of directors are authentic regulators present in each and
every organisation and they are responsible for having check on business activities & operations.
The BOD observes and administers all decisions made while performing business operations.
Every individual has to conclude addressed meeting with meaning of providing guides and
performing methods as per the procedure. An instruction is given to individual which prevents
threatening of work. As per the Purdue Phrama, it has earned billions of revenue but it is banned
in more than 1500 cities. There are wrongful activities in this industry. Thus different cities of
US have filed lawsuit against this company and they demanded claim for the same. But people
were unhappy with this decision (Osland, Clinch, and Jin, 2018). There was obligation of
different ethical and legal regulations by this organisation. Board of members of this company
have taken deep thoughts about addressing this issue seriously.
Success from the perspective of public confidence and how this is affected by unethical
behaviour
It is not easy for companies to make their customers satisfied and happy. Purdue Pharma
has faced various consequences by not following guidelines and procedures for ethical
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functioning. The marketing strategy of this company was great but it was in a wrong direction.
They promoted drug and attracted more customers towards that product. When any company is
involved in unethical activities, then this creates disturbance in performing business operations.
Proper solutions were made by Purdue Pharma for resolving issues of unethical business
activities. Various instances were there which reflect Purdue pharma has to face and give proper
guidance in the workloads at time of crisis. Customers of medicines of this company were
disheartened by knowing about their unethical practise in business. The marketing skills of
Purdue Pharma are good but they lack in knowledge of ethical practise while promoting a
product or service. This company must have focused on marketing the pills and medicines to
target customers in a right manner. There were some cases of drug overdose as customers used
their medicines as intake of drug (Laguna Hills, Manchikanti, and Purdue Pharma, 2015).
Customers have been directed towards wrong way of using medicines. There must be clear
understanding of doing business activities and operations in an effective manner. The drug which
this company was selling caused stipulation to people and it didn't allowed any individual to
provide good guidance and scope for working. People were not at all satisfied by the decision of
getting compensated money for their family members who died by consuming Oxycotin. They
should know how to handle and manage activities that are related to benefit of consumers.
Purdue pharma must take care while providing medicines to people as it directly affects image
and reputation of the company. According to people who suffered by consuming medicine of
this company claimed that they want proper justice and this company should close and nobody
should buy medicines from this company.
Recommendation
The leaders and managers of Purdue Pharma are recommended that they must accept that
they are held to higher standards than other companies. They should be more vigilant regarding
intentions and how they interpret behaviours. The management of Purdue Pharma must work
effectively in order to follow ethics in business operations. Leaders of this company must know
how to handle stressful situations, deal with unethical business issues and Confront poor
performance. This company has reached a tentative agreement with plaintiff for solving litigation
over alleged role in fuelling of opioid crisis of US. This company can redirect it's sales force for
focusing on doctors who were prolific prescribers of Oxycontin. This company after the scandal
can take initiatives for not doing marketing of products in a wrongful manner. Like every other
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organisation, Purdue Pharma must protect itself from participating in any kind of unethical issue.
Success of the company must be priority of this organisation but there must be no compromise
with ethical functioning of company. This organisation must provide quality medicines and
drugs to people. They have good marketing skills and they should use them in a right manner.
They must carry out all operations effectively (Green, And Et. AL, 2017.). Business ethics is an
essential factor and it should be followed in this organisation appropriately. Success of company
totally depends on how functions and operations are executed in a firm. It is important that the
managers of Purdue Pharma must work following ethical rules and norms so that there is no
problem in smooth functioning of the organisation. It is responsibility of the companies to work
in an appropriate manner and following all regulations and rules. The main motive of all
organisations is to earn money but in doing so they should not harm environment or society. This
company was so involved in making money that it overcome the negative impacts of the
medicine on lives of thousands of innocent people.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it is concluded that a successful business is one in which all
operations and functions are effectively performed. All shareholders and other executives of the
company must focus on operating of all business activities in an ethical manner. On the other
hand, all employees working in the company must know that there are negative consequences
for the company if it is doing some unethical work while running business. There are various
concepts which have to be performed in an effective manner for providing correct measures and
lecture for the performance of company. Every individual must guide & regulate functions that
are important for developing and growing of the company. All business owners and leaders
should never forget core purpose of doing business and selling quality products to people. All
businesses have a positive aspect towards working.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Green, J.L. And Et. AL, 2017. Medical outcomes associated with prescription opioid abuse via
oral and non-oral routes of administration. Drug and alcohol dependence, 175, pp.140-
145.
Laguna Hills, C.A., Manchikanti, L. and Purdue Pharma, L.P., 2015. First, do no harm by
adopting evidence-based policy initiatives: the overselling of ICD-10 by congress with
high expectations. Pain physician, 18, pp.E107-E113.
Osland, A., Clinch, N. and Jin, R., 2018. Purdue pharma: Public relations problems and
corporate social responsibility opportunities. SAGE Publications: SAGE Business
Cases Originals.
Sarpatwari, A., Sinha, M.S. and Kesselheim, A.S., 2017. The opioid epidemic: fixing a broken
pharmaceutical market. Harv. L. & Pol'y Rev., 11, p.463.
Subnaik, D., Pratt, J. and Roman, P., 2015. (467) Complete relief of chronic abdominal pain after
rapid detoxification of oral and intravenous opiates: a case report. The Journal of
Pain, 16(4), p.S92.
Van Dijk, C.N., 2019. From painkiller to killer: the ‘oxy’case.
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