Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (A) Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

In year 2006, Merrimack Pharmaceuticals was an increasingly-growing biotechnology organization. Its management team was split over whether to keep R&D organized in functional sections or transition to interdisciplinary.

As a small company, the R&D organization had established in Merrimack a culture of collaboration across scientific disciplines that some worried would diminish with bigger practical sections. The rest were concerned that the interdisciplinary team-based design would be ineffective and hard to handle. This case describes the two proposed organizational layouts and presents the arguments within Merrimack's leadership team for and against each.

It highlights individual’s management at every phase in the R&D procedure, and the tradeoffs connected with each layout as they relate to responsibility, efficiency, innovation, product orientation. Pupils will explore the relationships between cooperation, task complexity, and organizational design in R&D.

PUBLICATION DATE: April 22, 2014 PRODUCT #: 614063-HCB-ENG

This is just an excerpt. This case is about TECHNOLOGY & OPERATIONS