Motivating university researchers
Date
2008
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Advisor
Coadvisor
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Volume Title
Publisher
Higher Education Policy
Language
English
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Abstract
Keywords
Grounded theory approach, Research management, University research, Work motivation
Document Type
Journal article
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Dataset
Citation
Sousa, C. A. A. & Hendriks, P. H. J. (2008). Motivating university researchers. Higher Education Policy, vol. 21, 359-376.
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Description
This paper presents an empirical investigation into how universities approach
the need and means for motivating university researchers through their
management practices. The role of work motivation for this group deserves
attention because pressures from outside and within the universities are said to
have made university research less of a curiosity-driven activity and turned it
more into ordinary work, with career opportunities and performance assessment
connected with it. Interviews with research managers in the Business
Administration discipline in The Netherlands have been analysed via the
principles of a grounded theory approach. The analysis shows that the ways
research managers deal with motivation issues cannot adequately be captured
by how universities as employment systems define the typical core categories
of work motivation theories, including goals, tasks, performance and
competencies. A crucial role for understanding how motivation is — and is not
— managed appears to lie in how individual and organizational understandings
of work assessment, work processes and work context connect to the social
mechanisms borrowed from the broader epistemic, discipline-specific
communities outside the university.