Observations on the leadership of the pharmaceutical and medical technology industry from a generalized Darwinism perspective

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify leadership behaviours that appear to be salient in life science firms and to explain them as Darwinian adaptations to the particular characteristics of that industry. Design/methodology/approach This work used a pragmatist, inductive, mode 2 research methodology. The method used semi-structured, laddered, qualitative interviews with 23 individuals from 22 firms in the pharmaceutical and medical technology sectors. Findings The work found four aspects of the industry’s external environment that, collectively, distinguish it from other sectors. Further, it found four leadership behaviours that appear to be strongly characteristic of the industry. Further analysis revealed critical antecedents of these behaviours in the form of micro-foundations. Finally, these behaviours and their antecedents appeared to be a Darwinian adaptation to selection pressures created by the external environment. Research limitations/implications The findings of this work are limited to the life sciences sector and do not support generalization beyond this sector. The work has three implications. Firstly, that leadership behaviours can be seen as at least partly sector-specific. Secondly, that the specificity of leadership behaviours appears related to identifiable characteristics of the industry environment. Thirdly, that the principles of generalized Darwinism provide a useful lens for understanding leadership behaviour in this sector. Practical implications This work implies that leadership training and development should recognize the specific industry context of the leader and not assume that leadership behaviour is a general, non-specific set of behaviours. Further, the work implies that appropriate leadership can be more readily enabled by paying attention to certain micro-foundations. Originality/value This work is original in two ways. Firstly, it addresses the leadership behaviours of the life sciences sector specifically. No previous work has done this. Secondly, it applies generalized Darwinism to the topic of leadership, which has not been attempted previously.