TY - JOUR AU - Sauermann,Henry AU - Cohen,Wesley M. TI - What Makes Them Tick? Employee Motives and Firm Innovation JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 14443 PY - 2008 Y2 - October 2008 DO - 10.3386/w14443 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14443 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14443.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Henry Sauermann European School of Management and Technology Berlin Schlossplatz 1 10178 Berlin Germany Tel: +49-30-21231-1520 E-Mail: henry.sauermann@esmt.org Wesley M. Cohen The Fuqua School of Business Duke University Box 90120 Durham, NC 27708-0120 Tel: 919-451-9770 Fax: NA E-Mail: wcohen@duke.edu AB - We examine the impact of individual-level motives upon innovative effort and performance in firms. Drawing from economics and social psychology, we develop a model of the impact of individuals' motives and incentives upon their innovative effort and performance. Using data on over 11,000 industrial scientists and engineers (SESTAT 2003), we find that individuals' motives have significant effects upon innovative effort and performance. These effects vary significantly, however, by the particular kind of motive (e.g., desire for intellectual challenge vs. pay). We also find that intrinsic and extrinsic motives affect innovative performance even when controlling for effort, suggesting that motives affect not only the level of individual effort, but also its quality. Overall, intrinsic motives, particularly the desire for intellectual challenge, appear to benefit innovation more than extrinsic motives such as pay. ER -