Achievement motivation and performance of scientists in research and development organizations

187-194 The paper focuses on the development and application of an adult achievement motivation (AM) scale. A questionnaire was constructed and a pilot study was conducted to find the underlying dimensions of the AM construct. Principal component analysis of 206 samples indicated that 10 factors appeared relevant, which explained for 69% of the original variance. Cronbach Alpha values for the factors ranged from 0.55 to 0.87. The ten salient dimensions identified were: Task orientation, Perseverance, Anticipatory behaviour, Competitiveness, Test taking behaviour, Reaction to success/failure, Future orientation, Independence, Rigidity and Involvement. The questionnaire was administered to 222 scientists working in R&D organizations. Discriminant analysis was carried out using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) package. Results indicated that there exists a significant correlation between consistently good performance and AM.