Hybrid corporate governance and its effects on innovation: A case study of AstraZeneca

This case study looks at the relationship between the UK/Swedish pharmaceutical firm. AstraZeneca, and its shareholders from the point of view of its effects on innovation. It uses a theoretical framework on corporate governance and innovation that differentiates sectors according to the novelty, visibility and appropriability of technological change. High novelty requires a corporate governance system with strong industry-specific expertise; low visibility requires good firm-specific perceptiveness. High appropriability favours shareholder supremacy (is against stakeholder inclusion. The pharmaceutical industry appears to be high in all three, and this (according to accepted stereotypes) should favour the outsider-dominated corporate governance system of the UK as against the insider-dominated Swedish system. It is found that the corporate governance that resulted from the merger could indeed be described as hybrid, but that (following the building up of one major US shareholding) it was a UK/Swedish/US hybrid. In spite of the apparent similarity of the UK and US 'outsider-dominated systems, the US element made a crucial difference, in giving engagement by a strong and well-informed shareholder who had some influence on other shareholders. This in turn helped to protect the firm to a significant extent from short-term pressures within the UK stock market, and thus to allow it to maintain its emphasis on long-term innovation.