Research On System Motivation Of Senior Researchers Of Universities

In the new era, the knowledge is considered as the critical resource of organizational innovation and strategic advantage, therefore the knowledge workers has become the halo group of the society, who are regarded as the most valuable asset of the organizations in the 21 st century. Some skilled workforce, like faculty and researchers in universities, academic institutitions and high-tech enterprises, stand at the forefront of knowledge production, and play important roles in the development of innovation-based economy. We define the senior researchers as the professors of universities, who engage in knowledge production, dissemination, extension and application, as well as mainly involving in scientific research with research competence and managerial skills.At present, the human resource management of our universities is not perfect, such as the neglect of fair shake, performance feedback and compensation benefit, which makes professors still need to concern with the career development under the pressure of research and teaching, instead of focus on the academics. The lack of motivation not only reduces the work enthusiasm of researchers, but also affects the research outputs and technology transfer. How to integrate various motivators into a system to improve the motivational efficiency, consequently to motivate the senior researchers improve their self-value and competency in knowledge creation and innovative actives, is an important study with great theorical and practical values.This dissertation first introduces some ideas of system thinking theories into motivation area through the reviews of system theories and motivation theories, which provide a holistic view of motivation of senior researcher. Based on the above theoretical analysis, we propose the concept of system motivation of senior researcheres, and build the research framework of this study.Secondly, we develope a motivational factors questionnaire and measure it among the senior researchers. According to the results of factor analysis and structure equation, we confirm that there are two dimensions of motivational factors, namely intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The former contains growth factor (including invidual growth, achievement and promotion), value factor (including self-actualizaiton, responsibility and personalworth), and identity factor (including recognition and respect), while the latter contains security factor (including compensation benefit, equity, job security and personal life), task factor (including task challenge, task content, job autonomy and flexibility), and context factor (including organization's future, organizational environment, working condition, cooperation, interpersonal relationship, policy decision and leadership). Thirdly, through the investigation of actual motivation of senior researchers, we test the motivational efficiency in actual work environment of professors with the regression, and compare it to the ideal motivational state. The empirical studies results indicate that the motivational efficiency order is growth, security, value, context, identity and task factors, and the motivational efficiency improvement order is security, value, context, growth, identity and task factors. We also compare the Chinese motivational efficiency to American's, as well as analizing the reasons of the difference.And last, we screen the motivators for promoting the motivational efficiency according to the above test results, including security, growth, value, and context factors. Then we divide the career of senior researchers into four stages, as well as finishing the motivators screening of each careerstage. The results show that the motivators of the determined stage are invidual growth, equity, compensation benefit and leadership; the motivators of the developmental stage are compensation benefit, leadership, self-actualizaiton, organizational environment, working condition, and equity; the motivators of the maintenance stage are equity, invidual growth, personalworth and compensation benefit; and the motivators of the recession stage are compensation benefit, policy decision, leadership, equity and responsibility. We integrate both of the motivational factors and various motivators to build up a system motivation model of senior researchers, and test its availability through the case analysis of Chang Jiang Scholars Program.