Work motivation
The survey of work motivation focused on three questions that reflect facets of intrinsic motivation. “I get a lot of enjoyment out of my scientific work” is a central item for intrinsic motivation, which appears in this and similar form in many scales (Ryan and Deci 2000). “For me, science is a vocation, not just a job” also reflects a passionate connection to the work, but formulates it in reference to Max Weber's famous essay ‘Science as a Vocation’ (Weber 1919). The third item, ‘I consider my scientific work to be meaningful,’ is based on the more recent discussions on the meaningfulness of modern management activities (Graeber 2018).
Figure 41 shows that across all status groups, an absolute majority enjoy their work. Almost as many also consider their work to be meaningful. Likewise, a clear majority of scientists agree with the statement that for them, science is not just a profession, but also a calling. Nevertheless, it must also be noted that this positive attitude towards scientific work is significantly lower among postdocs and especially among predocs than among professors. While 92% of professors still say that they “enjoy their scientific work”, the figure is 87% for postdocs and only 77% for predocs. Among professors, the other two facets also show very high values. For example, 92% say that they find scientific work meaningful and 89% feel that science is a calling. These high levels of agreement are not found among postdocs and are even lower among predocs. Among predocs, only 59% still say that science is their vocation (see Figure 41). However, this should not be a cause for concern, since not everyone pursues science as their career and professional goal (see Chapter 4).
There is also a correlation between work culture and work motivation. Those who work in uncooperative work cultures are significantly less motivated (see Figure 42). Motivation is highest in work cultures characterised by cooperation and simultaneous competition. The values are slightly lower in the context of high cooperation and simultaneous low competition, and even lower in the context of low cooperation (see Figure 42).
Both facets of work cultures – cooperation and competition – are related to the attitudes surveyed, with competition being more important for the item “Science is a vocation”, while the cooperation dimension is somewhat more important for the other two facets of motivation.
