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The purpose of this paper is to quantify complexity in translational research. The impact of major operational steps and technical requirements is calculated with respect to their ability to accelerate moving new discoveries into clinical practice.

A three-phase integrated quality function deployment (QFD) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method was used to quantify complexity in translational research. A case study in obesity was used to usability.

Generally, the evidence generated was valuable for understanding various components in translational research. Particularly, the authors found that collaboration networks, multidisciplinary team capacity and community engagement are crucial for translating new discoveries into practice.

As the method is mainly based on subjective opinion, some argue that the results may be biased. However, a consistency ratio is calculated and used as a guide to subjectivity. Alternatively, a larger sample may be incorporated to reduce bias.

The integrated QFD-AHP framework provides evidence that could be helpful to generate agreement, develop guidelines, allocate resources wisely, identify benchmarks and enhance collaboration among similar projects.

Current conceptual models in translational research provide little or no clue to assess complexity. The proposed method aimed to fill this gap. Additionally, the literature review includes various features that have not been explored in translational research.

This volume explores an expansive array of organizational imaginaries, or understandings of organizational possibilities, with a focus on how collectivist-democratic organizations offer alternatives to conventional for-profit managerial enterprises. These include worker and consumer cooperatives and other enterprises that, to varying degrees, (1) emphasize social values over profit; (2) are owned not by shareholders but by workers, consumers, or other stakeholders; (3) employ democratic forms of managing their operations; and (4) have social ties to the organization based on moral and emotional commitments. The contributors to this volume examine how these enterprises generate solidarity among members, network with other organizations and communities, contend with market pressures, and enhance their larger organizational ecosystems. In this introductory paper, the authors put forward an inclusive organizational typology whose continuums account for four key sources of variation – values, ownership, management, and social relations – and argue that enterprises fall between these two poles of the collectivist-democratic organization and the for-profit managerial enterprise. Drawing from this volume’s empirical studies, the authors situate these market actors within fields of competition and contestation shaped not just by state action and legal frameworks, but also by the presence or absence of social movements, labor unions, and meta-organizations. This typology challenges conventional conceptualizations of for-profit managerial enterprises as ideals or norms, reconnects past models of organizing among marginalized communities with contemporary and future possibilities, and offers activists and entrepreneurs a sense of the wide range of possibilities for building enterprises that differ from dominant models.