Corporate governance and firm strategy in the pharmaceutical industry

Using the case of the pharmaceutical industry, this paper assesses how the leading German and UK firms are adapting to changes in their competitive environment, at both the national and international level. We attempt to link how firms create governance structures (management decision-making, the organisation of the R&D process, etc.), and the national system of innovation, impact the innovation strategies adopted in leading German and UK firms. Our results show that first, the firm competencies created in order to compete globally may still originate within national economies, in part because the generation of R&D remains relatively national. Second, towards the end of the 1970s, the scientific basis in the pharmaceutical industry began to change rapidly. The evidence presented shows that UK firms rapidly developed new competencies in biotechnology and other research areas in response to the structural changes. However, German firms tended, until very recently, to maintain and in some cases strengthen competencies in traditional research methods based on organic chemistry.