(The Effect of Social Intelligence and Intrinsic Motivation on R&D Performance: A Study on R&D Department Employees)

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of social intelligence and intrinsic motivation on research and development performance. Design/methodology/approach – The data which were collected by a survey from 407 people working in the R&D departments of firms which operate across various industries in Turkey, were analysed. While the theoretical adequacy of the relationships between variables were tested by confirmatory factor analysis, the impact of social intelligence and intrinsic motivation on R&D performance was examined by regression analysis. Findings – The findings show that while intrinsic motivation has a positive effect on the success of R&D projects, social intelligence has a very limited contribution to R&D project performance. Besides, this limited contribution of social intelligence was removed when intrinsic motivation was entered to the model. Discussion – The limited contribution of social intelligence might be related with the technical education backgrounds (i.e. engineering, science and health) of the employees. Furthermore, the removal of the limited contribution of social intelligence after intrinsic motivation entered to the model can be explained by a possible mediation role of intrinsic motivation. The findings which present the significant effect of intrinsic motivation on R&D performance may be explained with the ability of intrinsic motivation to trigger individuals’ desires on the way of creating new technologies and developing unique ideas and products.