Study On The Incentive Mechanism And Its Impact On The Performance Of The Innovative Team In Universities

In 2000, the National Natural Science Foundation launched the "National Natural Science Foundation Subvention Plan for the Innovative Team". In 2004, the Ministry of Education came up with the "Development Plan for’Yangtze Scholars’and the Innovative Team." In recent years, funded by these two programs, universities have built their own innovative teams of high quality and national excellence. Accordingly, such questions are emerging important and demanding prompt answers as:How to manage this newly featured team? What approaches and measures should be taken to motivate its members? What kinds of incentive measures are effective on the performance of this team? That whether these questions could be effectively solved or not is directly and closely related to the R&D capacity of the innovative team and the nation’s independent innovation ability in the long run.Based on the gleaned materials, the writer teases out the developing process of the innovative team in universities and the features of incentive patterns in different periods. After reviewing the previous relevant research, analyzing some interviews and doing a questionnaire survey, the writer explores in depth the incentive patterns and their impact on the innovative team of national excellence in universities of Hubei Province.Based on the collection and summary of the relevant literature on the reform of higher education since the foundation of our country, this dissertation believes that the organizational form of innovative team at China’s universities has mainly experienced three progressive levels as teaching & research groups, seminars and innovative groups. Corresponding to the reform process of higher education, the development of university innovative team can be divided into three periods, namely, embryonic period of innovative team, development period and boom period.According to the classical theory of motivation and the research of domestic scholars, this dissertation tentatively categorizes the incentive operations on the innovative team of universities into the material incentives, spiritual incentives and emotional incentives. And the material incentives can be further concretized as research facilities support, remuneration and welfare; the spiritual incentives as personal development, democratic management and trust in work; the emotional incentives as support for work and care of life. Correspondingly, the performance of the innovative team can be characterized as innovative behavior and innovative capacity. Based on three hypotheses of management—the hypothesis of "economic man", the hypothesis of "social man" and the hypothesis of "self-realization" as well as the research of our predecessors, this dissertation formulates an assumption on the relationship between three incentive patterns and the performance of members of an innovative team. Specific assumptions are:(1) the relation of the material incentives to the innovative team performance is positively correlated and three sub-assumptions:research conditions and innovative team members’ performance are positively correlated; members’ remuneration and innovative team members’performance are positively correlated; members’ welfare and innovative team members’ performance are positively correlated. (2) The spiritual incentives and innovative team members’ performance are positively correlated and three sub-assumptions:innovative team members’performance is positively correlated with members’ personal development; innovative team members’ performance is positively correlated with democratic management; innovative team members’ performance is positively correlated with the trust in their work. (3) The emotional incentives and innovative team members’ performance are positively correlated, and two sub-assumptions:the support for work and innovative team members’ performance are positively correlated; life care and innovative team members’ performance are positively correlated. (4) Material incentives, spiritual incentives and emotional incentives work together to promote innovative team members’ performance.This dissertation produces a measurement graph for innovative team incentive with higher reliability and validity and conducts a survey which samples members of the innovative team of national excellence in Hubei province. A total of 240 questionnaires are issued of which 192 questionnaires are recovered and 185 valid. The valid recovery rate is 77.1%. With the application of SPSS13.0 statistical analysis software and Lisrel8.7 structural equation modeling software, the survey data was approached with the exploratory factor analysis, the confirmatory factor analysis, the multi-regression analysis and the structural equation model analysis. This dissertation reached the following main conclusions:(1) the positive correlation between R & D conditions and team members innovative behavior, innovative capacity is significant; (2) members’welfare and the innovation capacity are significantly negatively related; the correlation between members’ welfare and innovative behavior do not pass the examination; (3) the correlation between the remuneration and team members’ innovative behavior and capacity does not pass the examination; (4) members’ personal development and innovation team members’ innovative capacity showed a significant positive correlation, but the correlation of personal development with team members’ innovative behavior fails to pass the examination; (5) the correlation of democratic management with team members’ innovative ability was significantly negatively correlated, but that of democratic management with members’innovative behavior does not pass the examination; (6) work team trust and innovative behavior, innovative capacity are significantly positively correlated; (7) the support for work and innovative capacity, innovative behavior are significantly positively correlated; (8) the impact of life care on the team members’ innovative behavior and capacity does not pass the test.It is indicated in this study that the material incentives, spiritual incentives and emotional incentives have a salient impact on the innovative capacity and the innovative behavior of members; however, the specific incentives to the team vary dramatically in terms of influence on the direction of the innovation behavior and its degree. The innovation incentives directly related to the innovation—R & D conditions, trust and support for work—have positive effects on the innovative capacity and innovative behavior of the members; the personal development of members have a significantly positive effect on the innovative ability of the members, but they have no significant effect on the innovative behavior of the members. As for the personal life-related factors—the remuneration and life care of members, they have no significant effect on members’ innovative performance; and the role played by the welfare and democratic management in the innovative capacity is significantly negative, with the impact on the innovative behavior failing in the examination. This shows that the impact of various incentives for creative team members on university innovation performance has a characteristic of "concentric circles" --the centre of circle is the members’ performance, the second circle is the R&D conditions, work trust and support of work, the third circle is the remuneration and life care of members, the outer circle is the welfare and democratic management of the members. It changes from a strong positive impact to a non-significant impact, then to a significant negative impact. This study comes to a quite different conclusion with the hypothesis of "economic man", but in a certain extent, it supports the hypothesis of "self-realization of man".To sum up, this dissertation systematically summarizes the main theoretical progress and practical significance of the study in this field, as well as shortcomings in the study and suggestions for future research.This dissertation is an exploratory research on the relationship between incentives to innovative team and performance of universities, such as incentives, the refinement and substantiation of the empirical measurement dimensions of members, the reasoning and substantiation of the correlation between dimensions of incentives and members’ performance and so on. It is hoped that this article would be beneficial to future research in this field.