Motivated to innovate

By Martha E. Mangelsdorf - MIT Sloan Management Review

More than most employees, those in R&D work autonomously. This makes sense: They often know more about their field of expertise than do many company executives. R&D employees also often work in ways that make measuring individual performance and motivation tricky. But while difficult to understand, knowing what motivates an R&D workforce is an essential concern for companies looking to be at the forefront of innovation.

In fact, new research suggests ways to find the best employees in this field, advancing the idea that you shouldn't look for employees motivated by job security but for those inspired by intellectual challenges. Henry Sauermann, an assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Wesley M. Cohen, a professor at Duke University, analyzed survey data from more than 11,000 scientists and engineers in various industries. Among topics the survey covered was the importance the scientists and engineers placed on eight different work benefits: salary, fringe benefits, job security, intellectual challenges, independence, advancement opportunities, responsibilities and contributions to society.

Those who responded that intellectual challenges were an important aspect of their jobs spent more hours at work and produced more patent applications. In contrast, those who ranked job security as important tended to produce fewer patent applications.

Sauermann and Cohen offer several ideas about the relationships they found between motives and productivity. They hypothesize that finding challenges invigorating may lead scientists and engineers to select more demanding and innovative projects. The authors also suggest that employees' underlying motivations may affect their creative thinking. Those intrinsically motivated by challenges may find they think better when challenged -- they may find their attention heightened and recall more, for instance -- while those more extrinsically motivated, concerned about job security, may find their creativity stifled, their exploratory way of thinking less invigorated.

This article is adapted from "Motivated to Innovate," by Martha E. Mangelsdorf, which appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of MIT Sloan Management Review. The complete article is available at http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/.

Published on 7/7/2009