Management Control as a Strategic Lever for Industrial Innovation: A Literature Review

Le contrôle de gestion comme levier stratégique de l'innovation industrielle: une revue de la littérature

Marouane El Aliti and Omar Taouab
Additional contact information
Marouane El Aliti: National School of Commerce and Management, Ibn Tofail University, Kénitra, Morocco
Omar Taouab: National School of Commerce and Management, Ibn Tofail University, Kénitra, Morocco

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Management control plays an ambivalent role in industrial innovation, acting both as a potential obstacle and as a strategic lever for performance. Given the growing importance of innovation for the competitiveness of industrial firms, this research aims to analyze how management control systems can support, guide, and steer innovation processes in an environment characterized by uncertainty and complexity. Based on a narrative analysis of recent academic literature, the study highlights a gradual evolution of control tools, moving from traditional budgetary control to more interactive, agile, and strategically oriented forms that foster organizational ambidexterity. The findings show that steering innovation relies on a combination of formal and informal mechanisms, facilitating support, coordination, and strategic analysis of innovative initiatives. Furthermore, this research demonstrates that management control, when designed as a flexible and interactive system, constitutes a key lever for industrial innovation rather than a mere constraint. However, tensions between rigor and flexibility, as well as cultural, organizational, and digital dimensions, remain major challenges. These observations underscore the need to develop integrated frameworks and to deepen empirical research in order to better understand the role of management control in steering innovation.

Keywords: Strategic management; Organizational ambidexterity; Organizational performance; Industrial innovation; Management control; Ambidextrie organisationnelle; Pilotage stratégique; Performance organisationnelle; Innovation industrielle; Contrôle de gestion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-01-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse and nep-sbm
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05470592v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in African Scientific Journal, 2026, 3 (33), pp.2238. ⟨10.5281/zenodo.18310578⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-05470592v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05470592

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18310578

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().