Counting Past Two: Engineers' Leadership Learning Trajectories

Rottmann, Cindy; Reeve, D. W.; Kovalchuk, Serhiy; Klassen, Mike; Maljkovic, Milan; Moore, Emily

doi:10.18260/1-2--32552

Cited by 8 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 72 publications

(77 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The finding holds true not only for those who held either technically oriented or managerially oriented values, but also for others who highly value both technical and managerial work goals, even some who only moderately valued both [17]. Not only do engineers as a group have wide-ranging values and aspirations, current research suggests they chart career paths far beyond the two tracks [16], and these career paths (even for technical specialists) can assume both technical and social/managerial/leadership dimensions [12].…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…These career paths emerged as part of the initial analysis of the interview data, and we identified them as: Company Men; Boundary Spanners, Technical specialists, Invisible engineers; and Entrepreneurs. Summary details of the career paths are presented below, and full details can be found in [12].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For decades, empirical studies have pointed to the limitations of this dual track model [1], [9], [12], as this arrangement does not speak to the diversity of professional orientations, values, and interests across the profession. Research has found that engineers in large proportion, and with some correlation to age, prefer exciting and challenging work over either mode of advancement/reward system [1].…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As part of our larger engineering leadership project, data were gathered through in-depth career-history interviews with engineering leaders with at least 25 years of work experience [12]. Through referrals from several key informants, we recruited 29 participants who held senior positions belonging to 9 industry sectors, including more traditional ones such as chemical processing, manufacturing, and consulting, as well as less traditional sectors such as public service and financial services.…”

Section: Data Collection and Participant Samplementioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Engineering Leaders Retain Their Technical Identities: Living the Sociotechnical Duality

Chan¹,

Rottmann²,

Reeve

et al. 2021

PCEEA

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this qualitative study, we investigate the ways engineering leaders across different industry sectors conceive of their own professional identities, including those who work in less engineering-intensive sectors such as financial and public services. Our findings are consistent with previous research that rejects adichotomizing of engineering identity into distinct technical and social dimensions along technical and managerial career paths [4], [11]. Drawing directly from the experiences of 29 engineering leaders, our results suggest that engineers in management and leadership, even those outside of traditional engineering industry sectors, retain technical dimensions of their professional identities. By challenging the assumption that engineers must abandon their technical identities in order to embrace leadership work, findings of this study can demonstrate to students and early career engineers they need not resist leadership for fear of losing their engineering identities.

show abstract

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Data Collection and Participant Samplementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Engineering Leaders Retain Their Technical Identities: Living the Sociotechnical Duality

Chan¹,

Rottmann²,

Reeve

et al. 2021

PCEEA

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While there is evidence that professional engineers can and do learn to lead by leading (Begay‐Campbell, 2010; Rottmann et al., 2019; Toor & Ofori, 2011; Trevelyan, 2010), few are provided with explicit leadership development opportunities prior to assuming formalized management positions. As a result, novice engineers learn to lead while busy doing other things, often fending for themselves or uncritically adopting the managerial styles of their supervisors for the sake of expedience.…”

Section: Conclusion: Purposeful El Education Cannot Wait Until Gradua...mentioning

confidence: 99%