The effects of organic and mechanistic control in exploratory and exploitative innovations

•Organic control (OC) is a manager's chosen tool for managing project tensions.•OC has an indirect effect on performance in exploratory projects.•Mechanistic forms of control interact with OC to enhance project performance.•The combined use of management control systems enhances project performance.•Controls show complementary effects in both exploratory and exploitative projects. This study investigates the indirect effects of mechanistic and organic types of control on project performance acting through innovativeness in exploratory and exploitative innovation projects. It also examines the interaction effect of these controls on performance. The research model is empirically tested with survey data from 119 projects in various project organizations, using Partial Least Squares (PLS) with controls for the size of the project and task uncertainty. The results illustrate that organic control, acting through innovativeness on project performance is an important form of control in exploratory innovations, and also enhances performance in exploitative innovations. In addition, the results indicate that the interaction effect of organic and mechanistic control types enhances performance in both exploratory and exploitative innovation projects, suggesting a complementary effect. The findings are discussed in relation to theory and their managerial implications.