Do Incentive Systems Spur Work Motivation of Inventors in High Tech Firms ? A Group-Based Perspective

Nathalie Lazaric and Alain Raybaut

No 2013-40, GREDEG Working Papers from Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France

Abstract: In this paper, we explore with a model the potential tensions between the incentive system of groups of inventors and knowledge diversity in a high tech firm. We show that, when all groups are rewarded and able to interact freely with their peers, extrinsic and intrinsic motives are mutually self-reinforcing, leading to crowding in effects. As a result, the level of created knowledge increases in each group, reinforcing the diversity of the firm’s knowledge base. By contrast, competitive rewards and constrained autonomy are likely to produce motivating effects in a small number of groups, limiting knowledge creation to the firm’s core competencies. In this case, the firm can suffer from crowding out effects by the other groups, leading eventually to the extinction of creation in their fields and reduced diversity in the long run. The results are illustrated with empirical findings from a case study of a French high tech firm.

Keywords: work motivation; groups of inventors; knowledge creation; knowledge diversity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 J30 L20 O31 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2013-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-hrm, nep-knm, nep-net and nep-tid
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 2014, vol. 24, no. 1. pp. 135-157.

Downloads: (external link)
http://195.220.190.85/GREDEG-WP-2013-40.pdf First version, 2013 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Do incentive systems spur work motivation of inventors in high tech firms? A group-based perspective (2014)
Working Paper: Do Incentive Systems Spur Work Motivations of Inventors in High-Tech Firms a Group-Based Perspective (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gre:wpaper:2013-40

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in GREDEG Working Papers from Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Patrice Bougette ().