Impacts of interactive and diagnostic control system use on the innovation process

Abstract

This research explores the innovation process in organizations based on the Management Control System (MCS). We examined the link between the diagnostic and interactive uses of management control systems and their association with the intensity of the innovation process. Motivations for the research are: (a) enhance the potentiality of the model by including variables that are external to the organization, and (b) offer an empirical emergent country perspective on innovation. The study is quantitative and the data were collected by means of a survey questionnaire involving a sample of 121 Brazilian companies. The analysis was supported by structural equation modeling. The contributions are: (a) enhancement of the model by including the influences exerted by external stimuli on the intensity of innovation, (b) confirmation of the utility of the model in an emergent country, and (c) despite the controversial literature, highlighting the importance of the interactive use of the Management Control Systems process, by offering an empirical perspective on innovation control. A positive implication of the findings relates to the use of a broader and not exclusively internal model to increase its potentiality, reflecting the organizational reality by including the dynamism of external stimuli and the innovation control perspective.