Pfizer-Pharmacia Merger Case Analysis

Pfizer-Pharmacia Merger Case Analysis

What are the main issues in the case?

The Pfizer-Pharmacia Merger case demonstrates how a company must understand its corporate social responsibility. In this case, the company was unable to serve its stakeholders and put them first before shareholders or customers. By not using this view of CSR, the company’s employees became dissatisfied with their jobs which led to continuance commitment.

Why did the problems/ issues occur?

Corporate Social Responsibility:

This is the view in which stakeholders, the town and employees, are put before shareholders. When using this view the company is going above and beyond to benefit society and the environment, not just to gain profit. A company should be trying to gain profits and be sustainable in the marketplace, but also improve society. In this case, the company did not do this and focused more on their financial goals. For Example, the Pfizer-Pharmacia merger caused much stress for the employees as they were told that there would be a huge job loss in their community. This made the employees feel that they were not put first and led poor employee job satisfaction.

Continuance Commitment:

Having an identity with an organization contributes to each employee’s self-concept of their social self as they have an attachment to the company. In this case, the town’s employees have a high affective commitment to Pharmacia and thus, see their social self as a Pharmacia employee. When the merger occurs many of the employees are unhappy and want to leave. Continuance commitment occurs when an employee feels unhappy and remains in their job because it is too costly to leave. These employees have nowhere else to work and are therefore sticking it out and now have continuance commitment.

Splitting up the “Discovery” site and naming Kalamazoo the primary drug-safety evaluation site made many employees upset. Pfizer said they did these changes because of local commitment and...