PROJECT TITLE :

Technical Professionals’ Identities in the R D Context: Beyond the Scientist Versus Engineer Dichotomy

ABSTRACT:

Scientists and engineers are essential to Research and Development (R&D) organizations. Although the literature on technical professionals tends to characterize them in terms of dichotomies or even build no distinctions in the least, it is known that human capital is a lot of heterogeneous and nuanced. There's a need to revisit the underlying assumptions regarding technical professionals through deep empirical work to keep management connected to the truth of nowadays's workforce. In this analysis, we explore different types of skilled identities by examining the work motives and behavior of a group of employees during a scientific R&D organization. Using in-depth interviews with 25 scientists and engineers at a National Aeronautics and Area Administration (NASA) center, we tend to develop a motive-based model of technical professionals' work identities. We tend to found an overlapping spectrum of relevant work identities that transcend the scientist versus engineer dichotomy. Our model suggests three dimensions of motivation (social orientation, temporality of reward, and involvement with technology) that outline completely different technical skilled's identity varieties--among them, enablers, bridgers, researchers, and intrapreneurs. Depending on their dominant motivations and behaviors, these identities react differently to incentives. This analysis offers a additional current and grounded classification of technical professionals, that has implications for each scholars studying intellectual human capital and managers leading organizations.