Chapter 5
Professors’ Motives and Withholding Reasons for Cooperative Innovations
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Abstract
Major world challenges, for example, climate change, the shortage of food and water, the consequences of the energy crisis, and the immense inflation in Europe deliver extraordinary challenges to society and the political and economic system. Such challenges require comprehensive and contemporary innovations. Therefore innovation cooperations between Higher Education Institutions (HEI s) and enterprises are becoming increasingly important.
This chapter analyses the motives and withholding reasons professors have for entering into such cooperative innovations. A case study of eight German HEI s is presented, framed within the context of Vroom’s expectancy theory. As a result, it can be shown that professors mostly exhibit a range of motives when entering into cooperative innovations. They can be scientific- or economic-based and often harken back to intrinsic motivation, like the contribution to practical problems or the satisfaction of own interests.
If HEI s’ leadership is interested in increasing cooperative innovation, the focus should be on measures to maintain and increase intrinsic motivation, e.g. the recruitment and pooling of highly innovative persons. In addition, they have to implement strong support measures to minimise the withholding reasons which are related to support structures.