What motivates R&D professionals? Evidence from decentralized laboratories in Greece

Abstract

The challenge for research and development (R&D) professionals management is to meet the corporate objectives for effectiveness, productivity and profitability with the needs of technical employees for motivation, reward and satisfaction. Despite the continuous upgrading of the strategic importance of knowledge and technology, human resource management paid little attention to the distinctive characteristics of those highly educated knowledge workers, especially in an international perspective. Based on a large-scale survey of multinational enterprises' (MNEs') decentralized R&D laboratories in Greece, this paper offers insights on the perceived impact of intrinsic and extrinsic compensation on performance. Focused on three distinctive types of research implemented by MNEs, results record the existence of a multifaceted context of researchers' needs and satisfaction determinants, which is differentiated among the different roles of R&D laboratories. Our findings witness that in an EU peripheral economy, R&D professionals are motivated by extrinsic rewards and mainly by economic compensation.

Keywords:

• R&D professionals
• research laboratories
• extrinsic and intrinsic motivation

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express his gratitude to all the students of the American College of Greece that had participated in the data collection. Without their valuable help this research would not have been feasible.

Notes

1 There is a difference in the definition of engineers and scientists. According to Badawy (1971), scientists are more involved in the creation of new knowledge while engineers are commanded with the application of knowledge. For our research this distinction has no practical relevance. On the contrary, it leads us to support that both types of expertise fulfil the mandates of an R&D laboratory, which is ascribed with the generation, development and application of knowledge.

2 The total number of respondents is not restricted to the temporary workforce of the laboratories. It also includes contract researchers, part time employees, free lancers and experts. Moreover, in the case of joint research activities with public institutions, research centres, universities and local firms this survey was extended to all the members of the project teams.

It should be noted that any compensation system is very complex and usually consists of many aspects. (See Gomez–Mejia and Welbourne, 1988 for an extended review of the literature).

4 Source: www.eurofound.eu.int