Organizational and individual creativity in small and medium-sized enterprises: The role of the control system
Many studies refer to innovation and creativity, however the relationship between management control systems (MCS) and creativity remains underexplored, especially in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Adopting the Simon’s levers of control framework, this paper seeks to explore whether the diagnostic and interactive use of MCS impact organizational creativity or whether these systems moderate the relationship between the creative CEO behavior and the organizational creativity. Using data collected from an online survey in 112 Danish SMEs, this study demonstrates that creative CEO behavior significantly enhances organizational creativity. Our findings indicate that interactive use of MCS positively moderates the relationship between creative CEO behavior and organizational creativity. However, we do not find evidence that MCS are directly associated with organizational creativity. The use of MCS in isolation does not stifle or encourage creativity per se. The interactive use of MCS can act as an organizational context to maximize the impact of creative leadership.
Keywords: SMEs; creativity, Control system, Simons, Interactive control, Diagnostic control
