Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,3, New College Durham, 15 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: GlaxoSmithKline plc. (GSK) was formed in December 2000 by the merger of \"Glaxo Wellcome\" and \"SmithKline Beecham\" and is now one of the world\'s leading pharmaceutical and healthcare companies. The organisation is headquartered in London and has further production facilities in 114 countries within Europe as well as in Northern America and Asia. Apart from pharmaceutical products and vaccines, health- and sanitary items are also manufactured and sold in over 140 countries. (Annual Report, 2007, p.4) GSK employs over 103,000 people around the world. In 2007, women \"accounted for 24 per cent of senior managers and 37 per cent of all managers\" while \"minorities made up 19.1 per cent of employees in the UK workforce\". (Corporate Responsibility Report, 2007, p.100) The organisation invests in its own research to develop new drug substances. One in six employees\' works in the area of research and in 2007 GSK spent over 13 million pounds every day for R&D. Research efforts are also directed at diseases, which are mainly widespread in underdeveloped countries.