Global Engineering Competency in Context: Situations and Behaviors

Online Journal for Global Engineering Education, Mar 2014

Engineering graduates encounter worlds of professional practice that are increasingly global in character. This new reality poses challenges for engineering educators and employers, who are faced with the formidable task of preparing engineers to be more effective in diverse national and cultural contexts. In response, many commentators have proposed lists of attributes or competencies deemed important or even essential for global engineering work. However, such lists have tended to lack explicit grounding in empirical studies of engineering practice, including typical kinds of work situations and related behavioral requirements. As a step toward establishing a more robust definition and developmental theory of global engineering competency, this paper reports results from a wide-ranging literature review on engineering practice in global context. The findings are organized around three main contextual dimensions of global engineering competency: technical coordination; engineering cultures; and ethics, standards, and regulations. Particular efforts are made to relate our findings to prior discussions of what it means to be a globally competent engineer, while further illustrating each dimension by giving examples drawn from interviews with practicing engineers. The paper concludes with a review of ongoing and future work, including how our findings are inspiring creation of situational prompts and activities for both assessment and instructional uses.

A PDF file should load here. If you do not see its contents the file may be temporarily unavailable at the journal website or you do not have a PDF plug-in installed and enabled in your browser.

Alternatively, you can download the file locally and open with any standalone PDF reader:

https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=ojgee

Global Engineering Competency in Context: Situations and Behaviors

Online Journal for Global Engineering Education Global Engineering Competency in Context: Situations and Behaviors Brent K . Jesiek 0 Sang Eun Woo 0 Andrea Mazzurco 0 0 Purdue University - Global Engineering Competency in Context: Situations and Behaviors Cover Page Footnote An earlier version of this paper appeared in the Proceedings of the 2013 ASEE International Forum, Atlanta, GA, June 22, 2013. All unmodified portions of this paper are republished with permission from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), the original copyright holder. The a uthors gratefully acknowledge support for aspects of this work under National Science Foundation (NSF) grant EEC-1160455, “Global Engineering Competency: Definitions, Development Paths, and Situational Assessment.” We extend appreciation to affiliates of the Global Engineering Education Collaboratory (GEEC) for their extensive assistance with this project, and anonymous reviewers whose thoughtful feedback helped us improve the final draft. Thi s article is available in Online Journal for Global Engineering Education: http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/ojgee/vol8/iss1/1 Brent K. Jesiek Assistant Professor School of Engineering Education Purdue University Qin Zhu Graduate Research Assistant School of Engineering Education Purdue University Sang Eun Woo Assistant Professor Department of Psychological Sciences Purdue University Julia Thompson Ph.D. Candidate School of Engineering Education Purdue University Andrea Mazzurco Graduate Research Assistant School of Engineering Education Purdue University Engineering graduates encounter worlds of professional practice that are increasingly global in character. This new reality poses challenges for engineering educators and employers, who are faced with the formidable task of preparing engineers to be more effective in diverse national and cultural contexts. In response, many commentators have proposed lists of attributes or competencies deemed important or even essential for global engineering work. However, such lists have tended to lack explicit grounding in empirical studies of engineering practice, including typical kinds of work situations and related behavioral requirements. As a step toward establishing a more robust definition and developmental theory of global engineering competency, this paper reports results from a wide-ranging literature review on engineering practice in global context. The findings are organized around three main contextual dimensions of global engineering competency: technical coordination; engineering cultures; and ethics, standards, and regulations. Particular efforts are made to relate our findings to prior discussions of what it means to be a globally competent engineer, while further illustrating each dimension by giving examples drawn from interviews with practicing engineers. The paper concludes with a review of ongoing and future work, including how our findings are inspiring creation of situational prompts and activities for both assessment and instructional uses. INTRODUCTION Whether working on multi-national project teams, navigating geographically dispersed supply chains, or engaging customers and clients abroad, engineering graduates encounter worlds of professional practice that are increasingly global in character. This new reality poses challenges for engineering educators and employers, who are faced with the formidable task of preparing engineers to be more effective in diverse national and cultural contexts. In response, more global learning opportunities are being made available to engineering students, as reflected in gradual yet steady increases in the number of global engineering programs and participating students.1 Many companies also offer professional development opportunities to help their employees learn foreign languages and cultures, cultural etiquette, and global leadership skills. Nonetheless, there remain questions about what specific capabilities are most important for global engineers, and what types of training and work experiences best cultivate such capabilities. One typical response to such questions involves developing lists of attributes or competencies deemed important or even essential for global engineering work. However, such lists have tended to lack explicit grounding in empirical studies of engineering practice. Even when such possible links are explored, scholars face a large and diffuse body of literature discussing the manifold challenges faced by engineers and other technical professionals when working globally. Those wishing to carry out their own original research on global engineering work face still more hurdles, including significant overhead costs related to data collection and analysis, and considerable variations in the nature of professional practice depending on the geographic locale, industry sector, job role, and firms being studied. In response to these challenges and in line with a broader “turn towa (...truncated)


This is a preview of a remote PDF: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=ojgee

Brent K. Jesiek, Qin Zhu, Sang Eun Woo, Julia Thompson, Andrea Mazzurco. Global Engineering Competency in Context: Situations and Behaviors, Online Journal for Global Engineering Education, 2014, pp. 1, Volume 8, Issue 1,