The role of empathic experiences of entrepreneurial engineers within accelerators: a phenomenological study

Abstract

In this full research paper, the empathic experiences of entrepreneurial engineers within accelerators were investigated. Traditionally, engineering research and literature focus more on developing students’ technical expertise and knowledge than social skills. However, in recent years, a request for T-shaped engineers with developed social competencies has been formed within the field. One of the essential social competencies in engineering is empathy. Engineering educators have been exploring how to develop this phenomenon using different approaches and interventions such as human-centered design, ethics courses, and service-learning. Another vital component that is being included in the engineering curriculum is an entrepreneurial mindset, where the ability to empathize is also one of the essential competencies. Despite the importance of empathy, existing theories of empathy are ill-suited for entrepreneurial engineering theory. For empathy development among entrepreneurial engineers, it is important to have models of this phenomenon that reflect the contextual features of both entrepreneurship and engineering practices. In this study, the hermeneutic phenomenology is implemented to investigate engineering students' lived empathy experiences and understanding of their interpretations of empathy in an entrepreneurial context. The results of this study can become the foundation for developing contextual models of empathy that reflect the practice of entrepreneurial engineers.