Critical Approaches to CSR as a Strategy to Broaden Engineering Students’ Views of Stakeholders

Smith, Jessica M.; Rulifson, Greg; Grady, Cassidy Laurel; Smith, Nicole; Battalora, Linda; Sarver, Emily; McClelland, Carrie J.; Kaunda, Rennie B.; Holley, Elizabeth

doi:10.18260/1-2--32567

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The process of contextual listening may shift the way engineers view people-not only as stakeholders but as citizens and members of larger systems [17]. This has the potential of ultimately enhancing the needs analysis process while building trust with communities [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapid Assessment Procedure as a Tool for Front-End Stakeholder Needs Analysis in Engineering Projects

Gibson

Smith

Smits

et al. 2023

IEEE Open J. Syst. Eng.

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Front-end stakeholder needs analysis is increasingly recognized as an essential component of sustainable engineering projects, yet most engineering curricula only cover this topic superficially. Fields such as humanitarian engineering have long recognized the importance of stakeholder needs analysis for the success of development interventions, and researchers have developed best practice frameworks for engaging stakeholders that can be applied to systems engineering. These frameworks rely on established social science techniques, such as ethnography and inductive reasoning, and humanitarian engineering principles, such as contextual listening and sociotechnical thinking, to facilitate comprehensive needs assessments. While conventional ethnographies are often incompatible with engineering projects' timelines and expertise, anthropologists have developed methodologies to overcome these limitations, such as rapid assessment procedure. While widely applied in the public health sector, rapid assessment procedure has been seldom integrated with engineering projects. Rapid assessment procedure, combined with humanitarian engineering principles, can help researchers quickly gain a nuanced understanding of relevant aspects of complex sociotechnical systems. This article seeks to introduce systems engineers to humanitarian engineering rapid assessment procedure as a concrete technique for conducting comprehensive front-end stakeholder needs analysis. In this article, a case study is presented on the teaching and implementation of humanitarian engineering rapid assessment procedure in a workshop with a group of undergraduate engineering students. We sought to analyze students' perceptions of and learning outcomes from the workshop. Student engagement and learning exceeded expectations, positioning humanitarian engineering rapid assessment procedure as a potentially valuable tool for systems engineers to analyze stakeholder needs to inform system design.INDEX TERMS Community-based research, engineering education, humanitarian engineering (HE), rapid assessment procedure (RAP), stakeholder needs analysis.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CASEY GIBSON received dual undergraduate degrees in biological engineering and Spanish language with a minor in sustainability from the

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapid Assessment Procedure as a Tool for Front-End Stakeholder Needs Analysis in Engineering Projects

Gibson

Smith

Smits

et al. 2023

IEEE Open J. Syst. Eng.

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“…Our data consist of pre-and post-student responses on a survey instrument that we developed and validated for a much larger research project on corporate social responsibility in engineering education. A detailed account of the survey instrument and the wider project can be found in our previous publications [7], [12], [13]. The survey questions we analyze here assess changes in students' abilities to define the social license to operate (SLO), to gauge the extent to which a company had achieved an SLO, and to critique the role of the SLO in a company's overall social responsibility efforts.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As of January 1, 2021, a search for "stakeholder" in the ASEE PEER repository returned 3,604 papers. While it may appear neutral, the term stakeholder has been critiqued by social scientists for multiple reasons, including that it can simplify the social world; that does not hold the same sense of rights and obligations as might others, such as citizens; and that it can politically neutralize critics [7].…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the Social License to Operate: Training Socially Responsible Engineers to Contend with Corporate Frameworks for Community Engagement

Rulifson¹,

Smith

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings

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“…This survey is given to students before and after a course with a CSR intervention to better determine the effectiveness of its inclusion in the course. The project further studies courses at Virginia Tech and Marietta College, which have Mining and Petroleum Engineering departments respectively, and the Mining Engineering Program at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Smith et al [4].…”

Section: Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reclassifying Teaching Methods Based on a Comparison of Student and Faculty Experiences of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Classroom

Martini,

Helfrich

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings

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Though Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been identified as an important part of undergraduate and graduate curriculum for the Mining and Petroleum Departments by both industry and professors, there seems to be a difference between student identification of CSR content that could indicate a difference in teaching styles and possible effectiveness. We know very little about engineering professors' experiences of teaching CSR to engineering students. Previous research has investigated how targeted and critical instruction in CSR has affected students' knowledge and opinions about the connection between CSR and engineering, particularly related to how they conceptualize engineers' responsibilities to stakeholders. Research also points to the importance of understanding how students themselves define social responsibility, as understandings can vary and differently influence their pathways through engineering [8]. Examining students' and professors' perceptions in the same analytic frame is crucial, because mismatches can exist between what professors think they are teaching and what students actually learn and experience.To fill these gaps, this paper uses data from semi-structured interviews with professors and undergraduate students, as well as a student survey. The data was collected from three departments at the Colorado School of Mines: Geological Engineering, Mining Engineering, and Petroleum Engineering. These departments were chosen because they have integrated instruction in CSR into core courses. Our interviews with professors identified: how they were integrating CSR themes into the courses that they teach; why they chose to integrate CSR themes into their curriculum; how this affected their teaching; and how their CSR teaching affected student interest and learning. Our interviews with students identified: their experiences with CSR themes in their coursework; good or bad examples of CSR in coursework; and potential influences of CSR themes on their opinions of industry and job aspirations. Students also gave their overall opinions regarding the integration of CSR themes into their coursework. By comparing the viewpoints of professors and students, we identify a new classification of teaching methods and how they are perceived by students in order to help engineering educators better prepare students to critically reflect on the social responsibility dimensions of their future careers.

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Critical Approaches to CSR as a Strategy to Broaden Engineering Students’ Views of Stakeholders

Cited by 5 publications

References 9 publications

Rapid Assessment Procedure as a Tool for Front-End Stakeholder Needs Analysis in Engineering Projects

Rapid Assessment Procedure as a Tool for Front-End Stakeholder Needs Analysis in Engineering Projects

Beyond the Social License to Operate: Training Socially Responsible Engineers to Contend with Corporate Frameworks for Community Engagement

Reclassifying Teaching Methods Based on a Comparison of Student and Faculty Experiences of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Classroom

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