Controlling innovation and innovating control: insights from a knowledge intensive network

The purpose of this paper is to deepen the countervailing relationship between control and innovation in knowledge-intensive complex organizations. It adopts a middle range theory perspective (Broadbent and Laughlin, 2013) to explore how control systems and innovation dynamics interact and shape each other in the contexts of high complexity and intensive knowledge creation. The paper employs a single case study of a research-intensive biotech network located in Southern Italy, focusing on the change in the management accounting practices fostered by evolving environmental conditions and regulations that the network has faced in recent years. The paper finds out how successful organizational changes are facilitated by the implementation of innovative control devices, favoring informal collaborative relationships, which in turn contribute to further innovate and to share knowledge and capabilities within the organization. The findings are relevant to all organizations involved in complex processes of co-production of knowledge and innovation. They allow for unpacking the “black box” of the interplay between innovation and control, which is becoming increasingly central to these organizations and to policymakers. The value of the study lies in its ability to depict how contrasting and molding forces in control systems and innovation dynamics contribute to re-shape a complex organizational setting. The study offers a newer perspective of analysis to interpret the role of control systems in innovative networks, thus contributing to the growing academic debate on the antecedents and facilitators of knowledge sharing and knowledge integration.