Résumé
The aim of this article is to study the different roles of management control in business innovation, to try to identify whether these roles relate to interactive or diagnostic modes (Simons, 1995) and to determine to what extent they are involved from the upstream stage of innovation process. The results of a case study carried out with two innovative SMEs highlight six roles, confirm favorable influence on innovation of both interactive and diagnostic control and show that management control take place from the upstream stage of innovation process.