Learning to Practice Engineering in Business: The Experiences of Newly Hired Engineers Beginning New Jobs

Abstract

This chapter reports on a study of the experiences of engineers beginning new jobs in a business organization. The overriding question guiding the study was: What and how do newly hired engineers learn to work in a business organization? Two major concepts frame this study: First is the idea of an occupational community as a setting for practice, and second, the process of socialization whereby new members of an occupational community learn how to practice.