Reference no: EM132223630

ROLE OF “DR. DOMINQUEZ”

You are Dr. P. W. Dominguez, a biochemist for Radiology, Inc., with expertise in treating radiation exposure. You monitor with mounting concern the reports from Brazil’s Amazon rain forest. Everything from world weather patterns to the providing of an estimated one in four ingredients in medicine are tied to securing the world’s rain forests. But over the past decade, scientists, pharmaceutical companies, along with environmental groups, and others, have observed with alarm the destruction of the rain forests, and with them the destruction of entire species of plant, animal, and insect life.

You are particularly concerned about conditions concerning a particular plant found in limited quantities near the Rio Negro. Rain forest trees have shallow roots because the major nutrients for growth are located near the surface level. Biologists discovered a rare tiny plant growth called Shamatosi embedded among the trees near the Rio Negro. For a number of years, researchers have explored potential medical uses for these tiny plants.

You have been working with the roots of the Shamatosi plant in response to incidents involving radiation exposure. The worldwide expansion of nuclear facilities, the lessons from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, and the resulting cases of thyroid cancer among hundreds of children and adolescents, led you and your colleagues to intensive research to provide the swiftest response with the most powerful medicine. For years, Potassium iodide (KI) was issued in kits provided by organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control. However, KI was found deficient in protecting many body parts, such as the liver and intestines. You discovered the tiny Shamatosi plant and research indicated the potential for medicines from the root of this plant to provide additional protection, even for incidents of large scale or prolonged exposure. The March 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and the resultant radiation exposure caused by the events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, intensified concerns among scientists to find and develop a new medicine. You need as many plants as possible.

DBR, the Brazilian timber company, has possession of several thousand Shamatosi plants from this year’s season that have been replanted in portable crates. Your company, Radiology, Inc., has authorized your team to bid $1.5 million to obtain the plants. You cannot go over this budget. Your team will meet with a team from Pharmacology, Inc., who also wants to purchase the Shamatosi plants from DBR, about a possible agreement for purchasing and using the plants for research.

1. Briefly describe whether events in this case support or refute the resource dependence, collaborative network, population ecology, and institutional perspectives. Why or why not?

2. What type of relationships might you want to develop with a competitor for the rare plants?

3. Using legitimacy, make an argument for the actions of the timber company.