Does new public management repel talent? Findings from a choice experiment among German researchers

Abstract This paper analyses the effects of new public management governance on academics’ job choices. Based on a choice experiment carried out with faculty from a sample of Germany’s leading technical universities, we find that working environments characterized by varying levels of administrative burdens and high expectations concerning third-party funding acquisition are detrimental to self-actualization and hence tend to repel potential candidates. More specifically, we find this effect to be most pronounced for those candidates that universities would be strategically most interested in: researchers with a strong track record and those with an interdisciplinary profile. Without denying potential benefits of external incentives for existing faculty, we therefore suggest acknowledging intrinsic motivation as the key driving factor of academics’ choices and to design future governance structures accordingly.