Big pharmaceutical companies develop new business models to cope with the innovation crisis (patent loss, drying up of pipelines) and to improve their productivity in R&D and innovation. These pressures led big players to transform or reinvent their business models to sustain value creation from R&D and innovation. However, to our knowledge, there is still a lack of understanding regarding the “strategic alignment” of these organizational changes and on how they are perceived by organizational members. This assessment is important to identify both the levers and obstacles and, if necessary, to shape or reorient organizational change. In 2007, a new organization of Research and Development was implemented within Roche. The R&D is a matrix organization with five autonomous DBAs (.Disease Biology Areas). The new model is designed to ensure that Roche’s steadily expanding R&D operations are suitably equipped to meet increasingly complex requirements. By simplifying and accelerating the multiple decision-making processes involved, the model would be more efficient and effective in translating research activity in each therapeutic area into clinically differentiated medicines. It also enables an improved integration of the Group’s growing number of development projects. A decision was made to use Burke and Litwin’s (1992) model of organizational performance and change to assess how transformational and transactional factors are perceived by key actors (managers, team leaders and team members). Data collection and analysis (secondary and primary data) and questionnaires (62 interviews) relating to these factors show that progress has been made and that some other issues still have to be improved. Besides the vision, mission and values associated with the Roche project, that have been clearly communicated and understood, significant progress has been made in the quality of the decision-making process due to the cross functional cooperation between research and early development in the matrix organization (DBA) (time, simplification, flexibility). However, this structure is perceived as being complex. There is a positive relation between improvements in communication and the positive perception of the new structure. Even if respondents think that the implementation of the Roche project takes time and effort, they also think that substantial improvements will follow. A majority of the interviewees perceived that there are too many processes within Roche. This diagnosis also pointed out issues that need to be improved, like communication between teams and departments, idea generation and implementation. This analysis led to the conclusion that change processes induced by the Roche project are characterized by stable and dynamic dimensions. Stable dimensions are transformational and oriented towards the long term. They cover the company’s vision, mission, values, and strategies, while dynamic dimensions relate to the organizational structures, and, more importantly, to the “human factor” that is considered as the key success factor in creating value.
