Research and Development (R&D) generates innovations that help companies compete, tap into new markets, and secure profit potential. Since their success largely depends on their employees, a precise understanding of the needs and motivations of R&D personnel is essential.

Thomas Weber develops an agency model that systematically examines the impact of different incentives on the motivation of R&D staff. He innovatively applies intrinsic motivation, combinations of incentive types, and multiplicative objective functions within agency theory. For all types of incentives, he determines optimal intensities through theoretical analysis and simulation. He demonstrates that intrinsic and non-monetary incentives are more effective than extrinsic and monetary ones. However, combined incentives and cafeteria systems can offer advantages over individual incentives. Based on this, he formulates numerous recommendations for designing incentive systems and for team composition.