IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v56y2010i12p2134-2153.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Makes Them Tick? Employee Motives and Firm Innovation

Author

Listed:
  • Henry Sauermann

    (College of Management, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30308)

  • Wesley M. Cohen

    (Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708; and National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138)

Abstract

Economists studying innovation and technological change have made significant progress toward understanding firms' profit incentives as drivers of innovation. However, innovative performance in firms should also depend heavily on the pecuniary and nonpecuniary motives of the employees actually working in research and development. Using data on more than 1,700 Ph.D. scientists and engineers, we examine the relationships between individuals' motives (e.g., desire for intellectual challenge, income, or responsibility) and their innovative performance. We find that motives matter, but different motives have very different effects: Motives regarding intellectual challenge, independence, and money have a strong positive relationship with innovative output, whereas motives regarding job security and responsibility tend to have a negative relationship. We also explore possible mechanisms underlying the observed relationships between motives and performance. Although hours worked (quantity of effort) have a strong positive effect on performance, motives appear to affect innovative performance primarily via other dimensions of effort (character of effort). Finally, we find some evidence that the role of motives differs in upstream research versus downstream development.

Suggested Citation

  • Henry Sauermann & Wesley M. Cohen, 2010. "What Makes Them Tick? Employee Motives and Firm Innovation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(12), pages 2134-2153, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:56:y:2010:i:12:p:2134-2153
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.1100.1241
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1100.1241
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.1100.1241?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Iain M. Cockburn & Rebecca M. Henderson, 1998. "Absorptive Capacity, Coauthoring Behavior, and the Organization of Research in Drug Discovery," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(2), pages 157-182, June.
    2. Lazear, Edward P, 1997. "Incentives in Basic Research," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 167-197, January.
    3. Richard R. Nelson, 1959. "The Economics of Invention: A Survey of the Literature," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32, pages 101-101.
    4. Nicola Lacetera, 2009. "Different Missions and Commitment Power in R&D Organizations: Theory and Evidence on Industry-University Alliances," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(3), pages 565-582, June.
    5. Timothy Besley & Maitreesh Ghatak, 2005. "Competition and Incentives with Motivated Agents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 616-636, June.
    6. Oi, Walter Y. & Idson, Todd L., 1999. "Firm size and wages," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 33, pages 2165-2214, Elsevier.
    7. Camerer, Colin F & Hogarth, Robin M, 1999. "The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 7-42, December.
    8. Canice Prendergast, 1999. "The Provision of Incentives in Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 7-63, March.
    9. Josh Lerner & Jean Tirole, 2005. "The Economics of Technology Sharing: Open Source and Beyond," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 99-120, Spring.
    10. Henderson, Rebecca., 1994. "The evolution of integrative capability : innovation in cardiovascular drug discovery," Working papers 3711-94., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    11. Donald W. MacKinnon, 1962. "Intellect and Motive in Scientific Inventors: Implications for Supply," NBER Chapters, in: The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors, pages 361-384, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Bound, John & Brown, Charles & Mathiowetz, Nancy, 2001. "Measurement error in survey data," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 59, pages 3705-3843, Elsevier.
    13. Bruno Frey & Matthias Benz & Alois Stutzer, 2004. "Introducing Procedural Utility: Not Only What, but Also How Matters," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 160(3), pages 377-401, September.
    14. Wesley M. Cohen & Richard R. Nelson & John P. Walsh, 2000. "Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions and Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (or Not)," NBER Working Papers 7552, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Giuri, Paola & Mariani, Myriam & Brusoni, Stefano & Crespi, Gustavo & Francoz, Dominique & Gambardella, Alfonso & Garcia-Fontes, Walter & Geuna, Aldo & Gonzales, Raul & Harhoff, Dietmar & Hoisl, Karin, 2007. "Inventors and invention processes in Europe: Results from the PatVal-EU survey," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 1107-1127, October.
    16. Malerba,Franco & Brusoni,Stefano (ed.), 2007. "Perspectives on Innovation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521866644, October.
    17. Kenneth Arrow, 1962. "Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention," NBER Chapters, in: The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors, pages 609-626, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), 2001. "Handbook of Econometrics," Handbook of Econometrics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 5, number 5.
    19. Scott Stern, 2004. "Do Scientists Pay to Be Scientists?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(6), pages 835-853, June.
    20. Enno Siemsen, 2008. "The Hidden Perils of Career Concerns in R& D Organizations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(5), pages 863-877, May.
    21. Eric J. Johnson & John W. Payne, 1985. "Effort and Accuracy in Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 395-414, April.
    22. Bruno S. Frey & Reto Jegen, 2001. "Motivation Crowding Theory," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 589-611, December.
    23. Dan Ariely & Uri Gneezy & George Loewenstein & Nina Mazar, 2009. "Large Stakes and Big Mistakes," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(2), pages 451-469.
    24. Kevin Murdock, 2002. "Intrinsic Motivation and Optimal Incentive Contracts," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(4), pages 650-671, Winter.
    25. Heath, Chip, 1999. "On the Social Psychology of Agency Relationships: Lay Theories of Motivation Overemphasize Extrinsic Incentives," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 25-62, April.
    26. Roger Koenker & Kevin F. Hallock, 2001. "Quantile Regression," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 143-156, Fall.
    27. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    28. Topel, Robert H, 1991. "Specific Capital, Mobility, and Wages: Wages Rise with Job Seniority," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(1), pages 145-176, February.
    29. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2005. "Identity and the Economics of Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 9-32, Winter.
    30. Henry Sauermann & Paula E. Stephan, 2010. "Twins or Strangers? Differences and Similarities between Industrial and Academic Science," NBER Working Papers 16113, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    31. Stephan, Paula E., 2010. "The Economics of Science," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 217-273, Elsevier.
    32. Malerba,Franco & Brusoni,Stefano (ed.), 2007. "Perspectives on Innovation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521685610, October.
    33. William G. Ouchi, 1979. "A Conceptual Framework for the Design of Organizational Control Mechanisms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(9), pages 833-848, September.
    34. Schmookler, Jacob, 1962. "Economic Sources of Inventive Activity," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 1-20, March.
    35. repec:bla:jindec:v:46:y:1998:i:2:p:157-82 is not listed on IDEAS
    36. Jeffrey A. Roberts & Il-Horn Hann & Sandra A. Slaughter, 2006. "Understanding the Motivations, Participation, and Performance of Open Source Software Developers: A Longitudinal Study of the Apache Projects," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(7), pages 984-999, July.
    37. Roach, Michael & Sauermann, Henry, 2010. "A taste for science? PhD scientists' academic orientation and self-selection into research careers in industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 422-434, April.
    38. Wesley M. Cohen & Richard R. Nelson & John P. Walsh, 2003. "Links and Impacts: The Influence of Public Research on Industrial R&D," Chapters, in: Aldo Geuna & Ammon J. Salter & W. Edward Steinmueller (ed.), Science and Innovation, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    39. Oaxaca, Ronald L. & Ransom, Michael R., 1994. "On discrimination and the decomposition of wage differentials," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 5-21, March.
    40. Lakhani, Karim R. & von Hippel, Eric, 2003. "How open source software works: "free" user-to-user assistance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 923-943, June.
    41. Barton H. Hamilton, 2000. "Does Entrepreneurship Pay? An Empirical Analysis of the Returns to Self-Employment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(3), pages 604-631, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Henry Sauermann & Wesley M. Cohen, 2008. "What Makes Them Tick? Employee Motives and Firm Innovation," NBER Working Papers 14443, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Henry Sauermann, 2017. "Fire in the Belly? Employee Motives and Innovative Performance in Startups versus Established Firms," NBER Working Papers 23099, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Simeth, Markus & Raffo, Julio D., 2013. "What makes companies pursue an Open Science strategy?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(9), pages 1531-1543.
    4. Roach, Michael & Sauermann, Henry, 2010. "A taste for science? PhD scientists' academic orientation and self-selection into research careers in industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 422-434, April.
    5. Henry Sauermann & Paula Stephan, 2013. "Conflicting Logics? A Multidimensional View of Industrial and Academic Science," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 889-909, June.
    6. Henry Sauermann & Michael Roach, 2011. "Not All Scientists pay to be Scientists:," DRUID Working Papers 11-03, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    7. repec:wip:wpaper:6 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Alessandra Scandura, 2019. "The role of scientific and market knowledge in the inventive process: evidence from a survey of industrial inventors," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 1029-1069, August.
    9. Cohen, Wesley M., 2010. "Fifty Years of Empirical Studies of Innovative Activity and Performance," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 129-213, Elsevier.
    10. Gans, Joshua S. & Murray, Fiona E. & Stern, Scott, 2017. "Contracting over the disclosure of scientific knowledge: Intellectual property and academic publication," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 820-835.
    11. d’Andria, Diego, 2016. "Why are researchers paid bonuses? On technology spillovers and market rivalry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 2105-2112.
    12. Michaël Bikard & Keyvan Vakili & Florenta Teodoridis, 2019. "When Collaboration Bridges Institutions: The Impact of University–Industry Collaboration on Academic Productivity," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(2), pages 426-445, March.
    13. Bruneel, Johan & D'Este, Pablo & Salter, Ammon, 2010. "Investigating the factors that diminish the barriers to university-industry collaboration," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 858-868, September.
    14. Wesley M. Cohen & Henry Sauermann & Paula Stephan, 2020. "Not in the Job Description: The Commercial Activities of Academic Scientists and Engineers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 4108-4117, September.
    15. Squazzoni, Flaminio & Bravo, Giangiacomo & Takács, Károly, 2013. "Does incentive provision increase the quality of peer review? An experimental study," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 287-294.
    16. Alfonso Gambardella & Pooyan Khashabi & Claudio Panico, 2020. "Managing Autonomy in Industrial Research and Development: A Project-Level Investigation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(1), pages 165-181, January.
    17. Diego d'Andria, 2016. "Employed inventors, inter-firm mobility, bonus pay with multi-stage R&D processes, and optimal innovation policy," JRC Working Papers on Taxation & Structural Reforms 2016-02, Joint Research Centre.
    18. Charles Ayoubi & Boris Thurm, 2023. "Knowledge diffusion and morality: Why do we freely share valuable information with Strangers?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 75-99, January.
    19. Sam Arts & Reinhilde Veugelers, 2020. "Taste for science, academic boundary spanning, and inventive performance of scientists and engineers in industry," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 29(4), pages 917-933.
    20. Nicola Lacetera, 2009. "Different Missions and Commitment Power in R&D Organizations: Theory and Evidence on Industry-University Alliances," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(3), pages 565-582, June.
    21. Lacetera, Nicola & Zirulia, Lorenzo, 2012. "Individual preferences, organization, and competition in a model of R&D incentive provision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 550-570.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:56:y:2010:i:12:p:2134-2153. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.