Grassroots Innovation: A Promising Innovation Paradigm for Pharmaceutical Companies - Innovation and Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry - page 125

that fosters organizational support , and (5) tolerance for failure . We now discuss
how SDT can help managers, in innovation-intensive fi rms 8 (such as pharmaceutical
and life sciences), design better grassroots innovation programs.

4.3 Theoretical Foundation for Grassroots Innovation:

Self-Determination Theory

SDT provides a comprehensive explanation of the microlevel drivers of human
motivation which has been repeatedly validated in a variety of contexts (Deci and
Ryan 1985 , 2000 ; Ryan and Deci 2000 ), including employee motivation (Gagné
and Deci 2005 ), which is a key driver of sustainable innovation (Amabile 1997 ).

4.3.1 Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation

With its origins in the concept of autonomy (Deci 1975 ), SDT distinguishes between
intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation of behavior (Ryan and Deci 2000 ). Intrinsic
motivation is “the inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend
and exercise one's capacities, to explore, and to learn” (Ryan and Deci 2000 , p. 70).
Intrinsically motivated employees participating in grassroots innovation would thus
be moved by autonomous reasons, i.e., by their authentic interest in the act of inno-
vating and creating new business. In contrast, extrinsic motivation occurs when
people are motivated by the possibility that their actions will allow them to achieve
a desired consequence or avoid an undesirable one, i.e., their action is instrumental
to its consequences (Gagné and Deci 2005 ).
Several authors have demonstrated, over the years, that intrinsic motivation,
being more “authentic” than extrinsic motivation, leads to better outcomes such as
enhanced performance, persistence in desirable behaviors, creativity, energy and
even well-being and self-esteem (Ryan and Deci 2000 ). Amabile ( 1996 ) argues that
intrinsic motivation boosts employee creativity. Lakhani and Wolf ( 2005 ) surveyed
programmers who had voluntarily contributed code to open source software proj-
ects and found that, for almost half of them, intellectual stimulation and self-
improvement were among the most important reasons cited for such time investment.
Von Hippel ( 2005 ) suggests that “employees of a fi rm may wish to experience this

8 By innovation-intensive fi rms we mean fi rms in sectors characterized by frequent product, ser-
vice, process, or business model innovation and fi rms with high innovation-related expenditures
and/or high R&D intensity. Hence, we believe that our framework is applicable and valuable R&D-
intensive fi rms, such as pharmaceuticals, but also to fi rms in sectors—namely services—that may
have lower levels of formal R&D but depend on frequent process, service, or business model
innovation.