Mapping the behaviors, motives and professional competencies of entrepreneurially minded engineers in theory and practice: An empirical investigation

Abstract

In many engineering programs in the United States and around the world, it is no longer sufficient to adequately train engineers with excellent left-brain skills - analysis, logical thinking, and quantitative thought. In fact, the right-brain skills, which include competitive differentiation, business adaptability, innovation and the development of a growth culture, and strategic thinking, are the "key competencies" required to differentiate decision-making in this rapidly changing marketplace. Today's environment calls for a new breed of engineer, one who combines their passion for math and science, with a complementary set of skills such as business acumen, customer awareness and sensitivity to societal needs. This new emergent class of engineers that industry is seeking needs to have an opportunity orientation, leadership skills and an entrepreneurial mindset. Entrepreneurially minded engineers (EMEs) are characterized as this emergent class of engineers and act as the drivers of U.S. innovation and competitiveness. EMEs have not necessarily started a new business (although they may have), they are, most often, working in established small- and medium-sized firms, many work in Fortune 1000 firms [1]. The Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network (KEEN), a collection of twenty-one private engineering schools across the US, in partnership with Target Training International (TTI), a worldwide leader in personal and professional assessments, is undertaking the KEEN - TTI Performance DNA Assessment Project. Three well-known and vetted assessments are being used to identify current students' skills, behaviors and motivators to integrate the entrepreneurial mindset into undergraduate engineering education. This project includes benchmarking practicing EMEs and mapping these insights with respect to engineering undergraduate students as they matriculate through their education, as freshmen, mid-classmen and seniors. The goal of this research was to study the hypothesized relationships between EME behavior, motivation, and exhibited skills, and seek to identify key EME attributes that may be interwoven into the current undergraduate engineering pedagogy in order to equip tomorrow's engineer. Drawing from a data sample of 4,965 undergraduate students, and 313 EMEs, this paper will employ a combination of descriptive and multivariate methods and techniques to address the following opportunities: 1 - Mapping the behavioral styles, motivators, and personal and professional skills of practicing EMEs to establish an industry benchmark, 2 - Creating a series of undergraduate maps that profile the behavioral styles, motivators, and personal and professional skills of engineering students participating in KEEN programs, and 3 - Mapping, analyzing and comparing the behavioral styles, motivators, and personal and professional skills of EMEs, engineers and undergraduate engineering students. © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education.