Breakthrough Innovation: The Critical Role of Management Control Systems

This chapter reports on the results of extensive research into the role of performance measurement and management control systems in increasing both incremental and breakthrough innovation in large organizations. It includes both business model and technology innovation and is based on extensive large sample survey research and field research with leading global corporations.

The research extends the common exploration/exploitation discussion and describes an “innovation paradox” where the factors that have led to many companies’ successes in achieving organizational excellence and profitability through cost savings and various incremental improvements are the same factors that have inhibited them from developing needed breakthroughs. The chapter also discusses how achieving breakthrough innovation is significantly different in top down versus bottom up organizational designs and systems. The critical role of management control and performance measurement systems is described.

The research provides a new model to achieve breakthrough innovation in large, established corporations. It provides a description and the details of a process – “the Startup Corporation” – that can be implemented in corporations to bring together the benefits of small startups with the benefits of large established companies that have significant resources, networks, and systems to achieve success. By combining these strengths, large established companies can succeed in achieving breakthroughs where they have often failed.

This research over two decades has provided new insights on the differences in the needed management control and performance measurement systems to succeed in breakthrough innovation in addition to the incremental innovation that is so common in large organizations.