Case Study: Ethical Culture and Challenges at TAP Pharmaceuticals

This case study examines the ethical culture at TAP Pharmaceuticals, highlighting the challenges faced by individuals like Douglas Durand in promoting ethical practices. The analysis reveals a corporate environment where financial gains were prioritized over ethical considerations, leading to unlawful activities such as illegal drug sales, unethical drug practices, and government fraud. The case details how incentives and bribes were used to influence doctors, and efforts to change the culture were thwarted by top management. Ultimately, the study underscores the importance of leadership support in fostering an ethical culture within organizations. Find more solved assignments and case studies on Desklib.

Ethical Culture at TAP Pharmaceuticals 1
Ethical Culture at TAP Pharmaceutical
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Ethical Culture at TAP Pharmaceuticals 2
Ethical Culture at TAP Pharmaceuticals.
Ethics refer to the moral expectation of for an individual or an organization (Bowie, 2017). The
topic of ethics has become very important in modern society (Kagan, 2018). Ethical misconduct
in the pharmaceutical industry has been on the rise (Parker-Lue, Santoro and Koski, 2015). The
ethical culture at TAP is a good example. The ethical culture at TAP pharmaceuticals was a huge
threat to human life and the economy. Their systems were aligned to support unethical culture.
Unlike Douglas Durand's previous workplace Merck and Company, TAP pharmaceuticals
indulged in unlawful practices such as illegal sale of drugs, unethical practices when dealing
with drugs and defrauding the government. Douglas Durand came to realize that the only
element that mattered in TAP pharmaceuticals was numbers.
TAP Pharmaceuticals had no in-house legal counsel. The officials pushed their products to the
sales field before they were evaluated by a legal and regulatory team. Here, the legal counsel was
done away with as they perceived it could prevent or lower their sales. It was therefore
considered to be a sales prevention department. As if that was not enough, TAP pharmaceuticals
often gave bribes to doctors and physicians who administered or gave their new drug called
Lupron to prostate cancer patients. The doctors were also given discounted samples of the drug
by the company’s sales representatives. They charged full consultancy and drug administration
prices as they were advised by the TAP pharmaceuticals officials.
The doctors administering Lupron were well showered with incentives. These included huge
screen televisions, boats, and equipment to be used in the office and golf vacations. These were
meant to keep the urologists motivated to perform their dirty work. The sales officials from TAP
pharmaceuticals were not accounting for the free drug samples they gave to the urologists as the

Ethical Culture at TAP Pharmaceuticals 3
law demands. They were not even concerned with the huge fine that a person with such an
offense if caught by the law could give.
Culture change efforts were undertaken by Douglas Durand.
After Douglas Durand saw all the alignment with the unethical culture at TAP Pharmaceuticals,
he was worried and not comfortable with the situation. He tried to make a change to this culture
with the confidence of being a vice president but all his attempts were strongly opposed. He was
said to be ignorant of the culture and did not understand anything to do with it. He even tried to
explain the importance of gaining the doctors’ trust but he was given rude reactions by the sales
representatives.
Durand finally decided to implement his desired change by offering a reward to all the sales
representatives who kept ethical standards such as keeping true and accurate records. This move
was well accepted and had the intended effect but was rejected and opposed by the top
management. The sales representatives eventually halted working with Durand’s right way. Top
leadership support that is the backbone to any effort meant to make a culture change was
missing.
Durand’s efforts for a culture change failed because he did not have the power or authority. As
much as he was the vice president in TAP pharmaceuticals, his efforts made little count since he
lacked support from the top management. Most workers in that company were engraved in the
unethical culture that leads to a battle in court and huge fines. As Kagan (2018) observes,
without the support of the management, it is almost impossible to change the culture of a
company.

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References
Bowie, N. E. (2017). Business ethics: A Kantian perspective. Cambridge University Press.
Ferrell, O.C. and Fraedrich, J., 2015. Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases. Nelson
Education.
Kagan, S., 2018. Normative ethics. Routledge.
Parker-Lue, S., Santoro, M. and Koski, G., 2015. The ethics and economics of pharmaceutical
pricing. Annual review of pharmacology and toxicology, 55, pp.191-206.