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]

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.