MIT Sloan Management Review Article on The Art of Balancing Autonomy and Control

Here’s what managers can learn from hackathon organizers about spurring innovation.

Today, managers recognize that innovation requires a high level of work autonomy for their employees. This encourages curiosity, enables independent thinking, and provides an environment in which employees can experiment and test new problem-solving approaches with minimal fear of failure. At the same time, top-level management and shareholders expect managers to innovate at an increasingly demanding pace, putting top-down pressure on employees to channel this autonomy into productivity. The challenge for managers becomes figuring out how to balance autonomy and control in order to achieve organizational goals without jeopardizing innovation.

About the Author

Hila Lifshitz-Assaf (@hlifshitz) is an assistant professor of Information, Operations and Management Sciences at NYU Stern School of Business. Sarah Lebovitz (@sarahlebovitz) is a Global Future Councils Fellow at the World Economic Forum and a doctoral candidate in Information Systems at NYU Stern School of Business. Lior Zalmanson (@zalmanson) is an assistant professor in the Information and Knowledge Management Department at the University of Haifa.

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