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For American Scientist's 75th anniversary in 1986, we asked 75 eminent scientists and engineers their reasons for entering their fields. As part of our centennial celebraticms this year, we've asked [...]

Engineers in certain organizations in which technical upward movement is prematurely truncated must often move into management positions to attain continued upward career mobility. This transition is difficult for both those who make it and those who do not, and may cause good engineers to become derailed managers. On the basis of career stage theory, this study proposes an instrument to explore the career states of midcareer and older engineers. The sample came from 254 members of the Chinese Institute of Engineers in Taiwan. The proposed career stage measurement, which combines organizational position ranks and personal perceptions of autonomy and influence at work, provides a valid frame for tracking career stages. The results differentiate six career stages, including one composed mostly of engineers in middlelevel management positions who apparently have fallen off track. Compared with on-track careerists, these derailed managers perceive less job success and perceive fewer up-front managerial skill requirements. They appear less self-motivating and self-learning during their managerial transitions. Both the background of the sample, which offers some causes of this derailed situation, and the abilities that engineers need to avoid derailment as they progress from one managerial stage to another are presented. Index Terms--Career stage, derailment, engineering managers, managerial transition.

Newly recruited engineers entering organizations often experience anxiety and uncertainty with regard to their roles, tasks, and career prospects in the organization. Successful adjustment of these newcomers to the role and organization has implications for performance, retention, and turnover of valuable knowledge workers. Organizations use several tactics to facilitate the new engineer's adjustment to the role and organization. This study investigated the socialization of 135 new engineers using the theoretical framework of organizational socialization tactics. The moderating effects of gender on new engineer adjustment are also examined since engineering is often described as a male-dominated profession. Results show that organizational socialization tactics strongly influence newcomer role clarity, workgroup integration, and task mastery. These proximal outcomes, in turn, lead to increased satisfaction and organizational commitment. Gender-specific differences are also found with regard to the impact of tactics on outcomes. Gender-moderated the effects of investiture, serial, and fixed tactics on role clarity and work group integration. Implications of the results for practice and theory are discussed. Index Terms--Engineering management, organizational socialization, socialization tactics, technical professionals.

Abstract About 82,000 Soviet-trained engineers and technologists arrived in Israel during the 1990s, joining some 30,000 of their local colleagues and creating dramatic over-supply of engineering cadres on the small [...]

Engineers have traditionally focused on hard-skill knowledge acquisition, but the increasingly multicultural work practices of professional engineers now demand better soft-skill proficiency, such as foreign language ability, communication confidence, and cross-cultural experience. Students and staff within a university engineering department were surveyed to identify how cross-cultural language use potentially impacted academic and communication performance. The results indicate that engineering faculties may be concentrating on subject content at the expense of facilitating the development of soft skills. The findings suggest that students do experience problems with communication skills that may be exacerbated when studying in a second language. Lecturers need to become more energized to introduce innovative curriculum schemes, more proactive in developing challenging learning approaches, and more willing to integrate cross-cultural, language, and communication skills training into traditional engineering contexts. This case study has implications for any university engineering department where students are taught either partially or solely in a second language and where issues of communication and culture are recognized as impacting the professional development of engineers for the global workplace. CE Database keywords: Communication skills; Engineers; Training; Professional development.

Engineering appears to be at a turning point. It is evolving from an occupation that provides employers and clients with competent technical advice to a profession that serves the community in a socially responsible manner. Traditional engineering education caters to the former ideal, whereas increasingly both engineers themselves and their professional societies aspire to the latter. Employers are also requiring more from their engineering employees than technical proficiency. A new educational approach is needed to meet these changing requirements. It is no longer sufficient, nor even practical, to attempt to cram students full of technical knowledge in the hope that it will enable them to do whatever engineering task is required of them throughout their careers. A broader, more general approach is required that not only helps students to understand basic engineering principles but also gives them the ability to acquire more specialized knowledge as the need arises.

Engineers have much to offer the world with their technical expertise and problem-solving skills. Engineers are, in fact, highly respected for these attributes. But they rank in the second tier of professions when it comes to prestige in the general public's perception, mainly because there aren't many engineers involved in visible pursuits. For instance, there are only four professional engineers (P.E.s) in the U.S. Congress and only three dozen among the 6,000-plus state legislators in the United States. This paper discusses the major weaknesses of engineers and the profession in not getting involved and in not showing up, and it also addresses the major strengths possessed by members of the profession that recommend engineers for leadership. Further, the paper details five premier strategies that engineers can use to become more involved, have more impact on public policy, advance their careers personally, and broaden the image and impact of the profession in the world at large.

Many recent reports from business and industry list leadership as one of the areas that must be shaped by engineering curricula to meet the needs of a modem industrial society. Also, a recurring theme from American business and industry is that leadership must emerge at all levels if we are to maintain our competitive edge. Because of the changing nature of modern engineering, young technical or staff engineers must grow into leadership roles faster than their predecessors. Thus, some type of formal leader development process must be incorporated into engineering education programs along with on-the-job training to respond to the changing nature of the engineering profession. This paper presents a framework for defining those key leadership qualities that are relevant to engineers. This framework can be used by engineers to assess and refine their skills as part of the leadership development process. Recommendations are presented that engineers can use throughout their professional careers to improve their leadership abilities.

Raising and safeguarding the true professional status of the engineering discipline requires a restructuring of the educational system and the participation of professional engineers. Engineering schools should provide more communication and business courses for engineers, offer more hands-on learning and urge engineering professionals to teach. Practicing engineers should also act more professionally, work together and get more involved in efforts of uplifting the status of the engineering profession.

Byline: Major Brenda Barton, Prof. Michael Bommer A serious challenge facing organisations and technical professionals today is keeping abreast with dynamic technological change. Many myths seem to exist as to how professional engineers are coping with this phenomenon, and the support rendered to them by their companies. Some of the myths about combatting technical obsolescence were explored through a survey of R&D engineers in a variety of high-technology companies in the USA. The analysis dispels these myths and highlights the dilemma faced by engineers in maintaining their technical competence. The paper concludes with some suggestions for addressing the issue of technical career obsolescence.

Byline: Anthony N. Nzeako The main thesis of this paper is that the National Open Apprenticeship Scheme of the Nigerian National Directorate of Employment should be integrated into the mainstream of the national educational and socio-technical development program as a baseline strategy for national technological development. By considering particular vocational occupational areas, the paper presents a structural and operational model of the proposed integrated scheme.

Byline: William Keogh, Laura Galloway The purpose of this paper is to document the experience of introducing and delivering enterprise education into vocational disciplines at Heriot-Watt University, with a key objective being to provide a model that other institutions may find useful. It describes the various and important reasons for the inclusion of enterprise in these disciplines, not least of which are the requirements of professional vocational institutes, brought about by changes in the economic infrastructure nationally and globally. Essentially, to maintain competitiveness within existing and emerging vocational industries, enterprise is increasingly regarded as an essential element of the professional. This paper documents how enterprise education has been 'embedded' within core vocational degrees, and uses the case study of the various Engineering disciplines taught at Heriot-Watt University to illustrate how this has been achieved. This paper details the effective incorporation of enterprise via both horizontal and vertical integration with core vocational subject material. This integration is argued in the paper to best prepare the vocational graduate for the realities of a career in his/her future profession within the current economic circumstances.

Byline: Sarah Cooper The encouragement of high-technology entrepreneurship is an increasing focus of enterprise agency activities in growing numbers of developed economies. Universities are playing a role in the development of entrepreneurial capital through a range of initiatives and programmes targeted at enhancing levels of enterprise awareness and skills at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The effectiveness of such programmes is sometimes judged by the number of students starting a business when they graduate. This paper argues that such an approach fails to understand the nature of the pre-entrepreneurial career. Evidence is presented from a study of entrepreneurs in the electronics and software sectors, which demonstrates that sizeable numbers of firms are established by those in mid-career, after a significant time working as an employee. During this period, the entrepreneur gains knowledge and develops skills and networks, which facilitate the establishment of well-conceived and sustainable ventures. This paper suggests that secondary and tertiary education and workplace-based learning are complementary components in the development of would-be entrepreneurs, and that the numbers of individuals able to embark directly on an entrepreneurial venture will be very limited.