Dear Colleagues,
You are cordially invited to our symposium at the AOM Meeting in Chicago:
Bio-Pharmaceutical Industry: Context or Phenomenon?
Sponsors: TIM and STR Divisions
Tuesday, Aug 14 2018 11:30AM - 1:00PM at Swissôtel Chicago in Zurich B
(Program Session: 1893)
Organizer: William G. Mitchell, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
Panelist: Ashish Arora, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University
Panelist: Navid Asgari, Gabelli School of Business, Fordham University
Panelist: Maria Elena Vidal, Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College
Panelist: Falguni K. Sen, Gabelli School of Business, Fordham University
The bio-pharmaceutical industry has been an important empirical setting for strategy research since the 1970s, when it was noted to outperform other industries due to its firms' diversification strategies and to barriers to entry that arise from regulatory requirements and other characteristics of the industry. Since then, scholars have examined multiple issues of strategy and performance in the sector, with the bio-pharma industry continuing to be a popular empirical context for testing theoretical ideas in strategy. Despite the strong research base, the pharmaceutical industry continues to offer important insights for practice and for theory. Indeed, this is not just- another-empirical-setting. Rather, questions that arise in the industry offer opportunities for discovering new corners of strategy concepts: why multiple firms have maintained above-normal profitability over multiple decades of active competition; why multiple waves of technological discontinuities have barely dented the sovereignty of many long-time pharma incumbents despite their undermined complementary resources; why multiple entrants have risen to industry leadership despite the continuing presence of major incumbents; why, contrary to popular narratives, many mergers and acquisition create value in the industry; why alliances continue to flourish in the industry when other sectors have seen a decline in alliance prevalence; why and how leading firms in the industry have taken on the strategy of value chain integration; how strategic leadership in key parts of the industry's value chain is shifting to emerging markets; and many other issues. Our Panel Symposium at the Academy of Management Meeting in Chicago brings together several strategy scholars whose work on the bio-pharmaceutical industry has generated important implications for technology and strategic management scholars.
Looking forward to seeing you in Chicago,
Will, Ashish, Elena, Falguni and Navid