Abstract:
Modern technological development of the modern society has been evaluated by
the number of patents, commercialization and economic gains of technological
innovations. Hence, the success of inventors has been purely measured by the
objective measures of the invention process outcomes. Even though, this approach
agreed with elite organizational inventors, independent inventors of a society are
more humanitarian than the organizational inventors. Hence, the pure objective
outcome measures were unable to address the question of why independent
inventors continue in inventive activities even they are not objectively successful.
Previous studies on the independent inventors has not focused on the social and
psychological factors. Hence, the understanding of the subjective outcomes of
inventive activities have remained unexplained. Along with the traditional objective
outcome measures, the present study explains the inventive career satisfaction
and sense of inventive community as two subjective outcomes of the inventive
activities of independent inventors in Sri Lanka. It explores how the objective
outcomes and subjective outcomes of the inventive life relates to the ultimate
global happiness and satisfaction of the life of the independent inventors.
