MIT Sloan Management Review Article on What Makes Companies Do the Right Thing?

Vaccine makers varied widely in their engagement with global public health efforts to broaden access to COVID-19 immunizations. Ethically motivated leadership was a dominant factor.

Business executives face no starker test of their leadership than when confronting the choice between capturing profits and saving lives.

Pharmaceutical companies generated billions of dollars in additional revenue from the COVID-19 vaccine, buoyed by bidding wars between wealthy countries as the virus spread across the planet.1 Faced with unparalleled demand, deals were being locked in even before the vaccines were developed. And once distribution started, vaccine hoarding began. Some countries had enough vaccines to vaccinate their populations several times over. As a result, millions of doses passed their use-by date and were thrown away, while people in poorer economies remained unvaccinated.

About the Author

N. Craig Smith is the Insead Chair in Ethics and Social Responsibility, director of the Ethics and Social Responsibility Initiative at Insead, and a visiting professor at the University of Birmingham. Markus Scholz (@scholz101) is a professor of business administration and responsible management at Dresden University of Technology.

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