Strategic and organizational innovations in the pharmaceutical industry – searching for total quality: the case of a large European pharmaceutical company

When considering the traditional conceptions of strategy and quality, the links between the two concepts appear sketchy. On the other hand, nowadays, the main streams of thought lead to a necessary and complementary relationship between total quality and strategic management. The pharmaceutical industry, because of the stakes implied by the activity itself, is particularly concerned with the links between quality and strategy: the example of the large European group Merck‐Lipha appears quite significant.