Open AccessENGINEERING LEADERS RETAIN THEIR TECHNICAL IDENTITIES: LIVING THE SOCIOTECHNICAL DUALITY
Author(s) -
Andrea Chan,
Cindy Rottmann,
D. E. Reeve,
Emily Moore,
Milan Maljkovic,
Emily Macdonald Roach
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
proceedings of the ... ceea conference
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2371-5243
DOI - 10.24908/pceea.vi0.14839
Subject(s) - sociotechnical system , identity (music) , work (physics) , sociology , public relations , engineering ethics , order (exchange) , duality (order theory) , engineering , management , business , political science , economics , mathematics , physics , finance , discrete mathematics , acoustics , mechanical engineering
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.