This paper suggests a theoretical framework for analyzing the mechanism of the behavior of academic researchers whoserninterests are tangled and vary widely in academic factors (the intrinsic satisfaction in conducting research, the improvement inrnindividual research ability, etc.) or non-academic factors (career rewards, financial rewards, etc.). Furthermore, each researcher also hasrnhis/her different academic stances in their preferences about academic freedom and academic entrepreneurship. Understanding thernbehavior of academic researchers will contribute to nurture young researchers, to improve the standard of research and education as wellrnas to boost collaboration in academia-industry. In particular, as open innovation is increasingly in need of the involvement ofrnuniversity researchers, to establish a successful approach to entice researchers into enterprises’ research, companies must comprehend thernbehavior of university researchers who have multiple complex motivations. The paper explores academic researchers' behaviors throughrnoptimizing their utility functions, i.e. the satisfaction obtained by their research outputs. This paper characterizes these outputs as thernresults of researchers' 3C: Competence (the ability to implement the research), Commitment (the effort to do the research), andrnContribution (finding meaning in the research). Most of the previous research utilized the empirical methods to study researcher'srnmotivation. Without adopting economic theory into the analysis, the past literature could not offer a deeper understanding ofrnresearcher's behavior. Our contribution is important both conceptually and practically because it provides the first theoreticalrnframework to study the mechanism of researcher's behavior.