ABSTRACT

In the analysis section, the authors focus on The Ferring Philosophy and show how Ferring’s ethics program, which revolves around its code of ethics, focuses on moral education and individual responsibility and thus draws on values that are widespread in a Scandinavian cultural context. Finally, the authors discuss and synthetize our findings and point to avenues for future—contextually nuanced—research on ethics and leadership in a global business context. In the analysis of the empirical material, we will draw on the concept of recontextualization to understand how a code of business ethics is received and worked with as it travels across different business units. The pharmaceutical industry is an area of the business world often subjected to criticism—perhaps to a larger extent than other sectors. In efforts to be a responsible corporate citizen who is both committed to science and cares for patients, some pharmaceutical companies establish ethics programs to tackle the duality of both developing medical treatments and making profit.