We analyze the effect of investments in corporate social responsibility (CSR) on workers' motivation. In our experiment, a gift exchange game variant, CSR is captured by donating a certain share of profits to a charity. We are testing for CSR effects by varying the possible share of profits...

Transparency in teams can induce cooperation. We study contribution decisions by agents when previous decisions can be observed. We find that an information chain, in which each agent directly observes only the decision of her immediate predecessor, is at least as effective as a...

We report evidence from an experiment where a principal chooses an agent out of two to perform a task for a fixed compensation. The principal's payoff depends on the agent's ex-ante ability and on a non-contractible effort that the agent has to exert once employed. We find that a significant...

Incentives and assistance provided by TTOs, university policies, patent legislation and scientific disciplines are certainly part of the explanations for academic entrepreneurship. But they are only one facet of the story. Another facet is related to the scientists' motives, expectations and...

What makes scientists patent and disclose inventions to employers? Using a new dataset on Max Planck scientists, we explore their motivations to patent and/or disclose inventions. We propose that patenting need not be used for monetary benefits. Scientists value reputation as important use...

Alphabetic name ordering on multi-authored academic papers, which is the convention in the economics discipline and various other disciplines, is to the advantage of people whose last name initials are placed early in the alphabet. As it turns out, Professor A, who has been a first author more...

This paper develops theoretical standpoints to investigate and analyse university inventors and patenting activities. Although the studies on academic entrepreneurship and university patenting have substantially increased, first there have not been enough studies on individual inventors and...

Policy interest since the early 1980s has focused in different ways on the creation of a large, productive, taxable economy - in which entrepreneurship plays a role for employment, income growth and innovation. The current understanding of various forms of entrepreneurship remains incomplete,...