The Disclosure Decision of Foreign Clinical Trials in China: Moderating Effects of Firms’ Contingencies

Result disclosure of clinical trial posts a conflicting logic between private secrecy and public interest. Despite ethical and legal requirements for disclosing clinical trial results, clinical trials’ sponsors tend to withhold the results. We explored the location, timing, and rationale behind the withheld clinical trial results. Based on the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) perspective, we propose that organizational EO contingencies moderate the disclosure decision. We used the completed clinical trial projects in China by foreign and domestic sponsors. First, we found that a unit increase in the sponsor’s experience can increase the disclosure about 1.01 times. Second, we found that industrial enterprises disclose results about 3.7 times more than universities do. Third, we found that foreign clinical trial projects in China tend to disclose 3.9 times more than domestic projects. We link these findings to two types of audience. First, we inform the academic community on the theory and empirics regarding risk-taking behavior in the biopharmaceutical industry’s clinical trial activity. Second, we address the general audiences concerned about the ethical and socioeconomic wellbeing of the public.