A Configuration of Control Mechanisms in Innovative Corporations

According to traditional management theories, control and innovation are two opposite ends of a continuum. These theories argue that control systems create serious obstacles for creativity and innovation, and in principle, organization's degree of formality is in inverse relation with innovation. But the new proposed approaches in control literature and experimental researches show that control is not only a rigid and static concept concentrated on standardization and minimizing the diversity and novelty, but formal control systems could also positively affect innovation management process. This paper tries to develop a new framework for making innovation compatible with control in organizations by configuration approach, presenting four conceptually organizational configurations. Two of the configurations provide the necessary context for innovation. In other words, organizations can use these two configurations to make the emergence of innovation possible.