Impact of Subjective Well-Being on Success of Technological Knowledge Creation among Independent Inventors in Developing Countries: A First Look at Sri Lanka

Abstract

Technological innovations have become one of the key determinants of the success of knowledge economy. So far, technological development in knowledge economies has been mainly measured based on organizational and explicit objective outcome of knowledge creation capacity of a nation or a region. In the Western knowledge economies, role of the independent inventors has been ignored, discouraged, and organizational innovations have been recognized as driving force in new knowledge creation. However, the continuous involvement of independent inventors in technological inventions in unfavorable conditions is a phenomenon that cannot be explained by existing objective measures. Recently, subjective well-being has emerged as a key aspect of human capital that positively influences the developing nations. However, there were hardly any published studies that examined the possible relationship between subjective well-being and the success of inventors in the developing countries. This paper presents the first look at this relationship among the independent inventors in Sri Lanka: a lower middle-income country in South Asia. The study found that independent inventors in Sri Lanka are not objectively successful, but they are subjectively successful. They feel happy about what they have achieved as inventors, satisfy with what they are planning to do and supposing to achieve in the future. Independent inventors’ subjective success depends on their satisfying assessment of existing objective outcomes, optimism on what they are going do, and what they are hoping to gain in the future. Findings suggest that subjective success or well-being of independent inventors might lead them to be continuously engaged in inventive activities under the unfavorable environments for independent inventing.