Motivation is important for the performance of any task and possibly also for the quality of the product. However, what motives people to do a certain job (and to do it well) may be very different. At a general level, theory distinguishes between two main types of motivational factors: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. A person is said to be intrinsically motivated if he or she performs an activity without receiving any apparent reward except the activity itself. Intrinsic motivation, thus, induce people to perform an activity because they find it interesting and giving per se. Extrinsic motivation in contrast is unrelated to the activity in itself. Instead, motivation originates from some separable consequences such as tangible or verbal rewards, and satisfaction comes not from the activity itself but rather from the extrinsic consequences to which the activity leads.
University researchers are often assumed to be highly intrinsically motivated (e.g. Frey, 1997). In this paper we test the degree to which this is true. But more importantly, we explore how motivational factors differ between groups of academics according to age, gender, scientific field and career stage. We also examine how this corresponds with the management’s views of what motivates researcher and how it is connected to the use of modern management tools like financial incentives and performance indicators. Empirical knowledge on these subjects is sparse and the results may accordingly yield important implications for the management of academics.
The analysis is based on a unique dataset compiling survey responses from 2654 researchers (incl. PhD students) at 66 Danish university departments representing all four main areas of research (response rate = 53.3%) plus intensive interviews and survey responses from their Heads of Department.
