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The purpose of this paper is to analyze media coverage of the pharmaceutical industry before and after the COVID-19 lockdown to determine whether the coverage changed in light of a global health-care crisis and the fast-track development of vaccines and antiviral treatments.

The top five US newspapers were audited, comparing the 12-month periods before and after March 2020 coinciding with the pandemic lockdown, yielding 493 front-page articles and editorials. Each headline and full-text article was separately analyzed and categorized as either positive, negative or neutral toward the pharmaceutical industry. A frequency analysis of the hot button issues covered in each article was conducted.

Year 1 and Year 2 audit results were compared to identify changes in media coverage pre- and post-lockdown. The amount of coverage of the industry increased 145% and the tone of both headlines and articles shifted dramatically. Only one of the five newspapers had a net positive article rating of the industry pre-lockdown, four of five were net positive post-lockdown. The proportion of positive headlines increased 165%. The top issues discussed in the coverage shifted from persistent challenges for the industry (e.g. opioid crisis, high cost of drugs) to the emergence of the virus and status of vaccine development.

This research establishes how media coverage of the pharmaceutical industry changed as the industry responded to a global health-care crisis and identifies implications for industry stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and define the types of organizational alignment – vertical and horizontal; to examine the evidence for the alignment‐performance relationship, and propose research questions and practical implications to advance the theory and practice of managing alignment.

The study is a conceptual examination based on a thorough review of both theoretical and empirical research.

The paper finds that vertical alignment has received considerably more attention in the literature. Studies of horizontal alignment within organizations are less common. When horizontal alignment is studied, the focus tends to be dyadic – between two functional areas. The limitations posed by the dyadic approach suggest gaps in the research and opportunities for future research. As firms grow and diversify, becoming multi‐business organizations, the importance of horizontal alignment will be elevated.

Research on vertical alignment should focus on developing larger sets of moderating variables, such as the morale of the workforce, or the life cycle of the firm or industry. Research on horizontal alignment should explore multi‐point horizontal alignment.

Managers in organizations with multiple strategic business units could use the application questions in the study to assess the state of alignment in their respective units and the organization as a whole.

The paper documents existing literature on the concept of organizational alignment and identifies new opportunities to continue to build and expand the research stream. It also provides a list of application questions that may be used to assess organizational alignment in organizations.

Prior research of the influence of “upper echelon” managers has confirmed the importance of matching the characteristics of senior executives with the requirements of their organizations’ strategies. Firms that achieved higher levels of strategy‐manager alignment at both the corporate and business unit levels were found to have correspondingly higher levels of organizational performance. This study extends prior research of the strategy‐managerial characteristics relationship to the functional level of the organization. Specifically, based on a sample of 196 managers from 98 companies, this study investigates whether manufacturing units pursuing dissimilar strategies are led by manufacturing managers with dissimilar attributes, and whether the strategy‐manager alignment is related to the performance of the manufacturing unit. Results provide evidence to support these hypothesized relationships.

The purpose of this study is to analyze newspaper coverage of ethical issues in the pharmaceutical industry.

The top five US newspapers were audited over two years and yielded 376 articles, which appeared as front‐page stories or editorials. First, headlines were analyzed and categorized as positive, negative, or neutral toward the industry. Next, the full‐text of each article was analyzed and ethical issues in each article were categorized. Then, articles were evaluated to determine whether the opposing point of view was included. Finally, comparisons were made between the identified issues and the issues cited by PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry's trade association.

Analysis of the ethical issues revealed different results for the two years. In 2004, the most common issues covered were drug pricing, data disclosure and importation/reimportation. In 2005, drug safety was the number one issue, due to Vioxx^® with drug pricing a distant second. Headlines were negative 57.1 percent in 2004 and 43.9 percent in 2005. Full‐text articles were negative 69.5 percent in 2004 and 60.1 percent in 2005. The opposing point of view was included 77.7 percent in 2004 and increased to 82.7 percent in 2005. Ethical issues cited by PhRMA, (e.g. drug pricing), received heavy coverage but several identified issues were not on PhRMA's list, notably drug safety.

Pharmaceutical companies need to take action to address the negative impression about them.

This research establishes a practical methodology to evaluate newspaper coverage of ethical issues involving the pharmaceutical industry.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the competitive priorities of manufacturers in India, and examine the level of agreement or strategic consensus between senior executives and manufacturing managers on manufacturing competitive priorities in light of the prevalent culture.

Survey data collected from 156 respondents from 78 manufacturing units based on a national sample in India are used to test the hypotheses using the paired samples t‐tests and multivariate analysis of variance.

A relatively high emphasis by both levels of managers on quality, compared to the other three competitive priorities, is noteworthy and consistent with the global trends. The emphasis on delivery is a close second. Differences in competitive priorities exist across managerial levels in India despite the high power distance and low individualism.

The effect of ownership as private or public company was examined and no significant differences found, but data could not be collected on the ownership structure such as wholly owned domestic firms, foreign subsidiaries, or joint ventures. and whether a firm is a supplier to a multinational company. It may also be noted that a majority of the manufacturing companies in this paper came from three industries – chemicals, fabricated metals, and electronic and electrical equipment – and, hence, the findings of the paper might have been unduly influenced by the prevalent practices in these industries.

The paper informs global managers and firms seeking to outsource to, or invest in, India that the Indian managers place significantly high emphasis on quality and delivery, but not as much on product variety or ability to make frequent changes to product design and production volume. The managers in India need to take note of prevailing differences in managerial priorities and efforts need to be made such that the priorities are aligned and manufacturing strategy may be unified and coordinated.

In the Indian context, this is the first study that deployed multiple respondents to understand the manufacturing competitive priorities, and also the first to examine strategic consensus in operations strategy.

In the information age, the key to competitive advantage, claim many contemporary management thinkers, is no longer land or capital but knowledge, and specifically the capacity of organizations to acquire knowledge that translates into ongoing organizational innovations. The learning organization is a model of the organizational type that allows the human spirit to flourish so that creativity and innovation are possible. This study examines the characteristics of the learning organization, emphasizing its spiritual themes of employee growth, collaboration, and a sense of community. Points of convergence and divergence between the learning organization model and traditional spiritual understandings of employees and organizations are explored. Learning from these spiritual sources, it is argued, will not only help organizations achieve business objectives, but allow human beings to flourish within organizations.

The High Court judgments in the two appeal cases relating to the sale of cream containing boric acid will be read with considerable satisfaction by those who consider that the protection of the health of the people is a matter of greater importance than the protection of the interests of a trade. In one case the Westminster City Council appealed against the decision of a Metropolitan Police magistrate who had dismissed a summons taken out by the Council under the third Section of the Act of 1875 for the sale of “preserved cream” containing 23·8 grains of boric acid per pound, and in the other the vendors of a sample of “preserved cream” containing 19·7 grains of boric acid per pound, appealed against their conviction under the same Section of the Act by the Kensington justices. In the first case the appeal was allowed and the case was remitted to the magistrate with a direction to convict; and in the second the appeal was dismissed, the Divisional Court, consisting of Justices Ridley, Bray and Avory being unanimous in both cases.

The purpose of this research is examine the development of livestock mortality insurance, and associated challenges, in order to provide an improved understanding regarding the operation of livestock mortality insurance.

In a many countries, livestock mortality insurance has been either unavailable or underdeveloped. A descriptive analysis is provided regarding the background and development of livestock mortality insurance, along with an example.

Livestock mortality insurance is considerably more complex than crop insurance, and some of the complexities of livestock mortality insurance include multi‐stage production, consequential losses, occasional large event losses, animal health management, moral hazard, and adverse selection.

This study provides background and development information regarding livestock mortality insurance, and also highlights a number of important differences between livestock mortality insurance and crop insurance.

The inspection of food labellings is a long and monotonous routine but nonetheless, a cornerstone of consumer protection. For many years complaints have been made of the loopholes and anomalies in the statutory requirements for labelling, particularly in descriptive names and declarations of ingredients. The long‐awaited report of the Food Standards Committee on Food Labelling has now appeared and been reviewed at some length in the present and previous issues of the B.F.J. The Committee have taken a long time over their subject, but their review of it has been most thorough. Their recommendations are in the main reasonable and whilst some are new and others, if adopted, could have a not inconsiderable influence on manufacturing practice, they do not disturb the present structure of food labelling set up by the Order of 1953, which was quite a landmark in its day.