Technical Career Path Research Articles

INTEREST IN, AND CHARACTERIZATION OF, MANAGERIAL AND TECHNICAL CAREER PATHS AMONG SECOND-YEAR WOMEN ENGINEERING STUDENTS

Patterns of intraoccupational gender segregation have been found in engineering industry, and these patterns may pose challenges for women, currently and historically. We explore the career path interests and characterizations of women engineering students toward technical and managerial paths in industry that may be precursors to their eventual choice of career path once they enter the profession. We conducted semi-interviews with 30 second-year women engineering students in three majors. We applied an iterative thematic analysis approach to explore and compare career path interests and attitudes within and across majors. Analyses generated four key findings: (1) the majority of students expressed an interest in the managerial career path; (2) students associated the managerial career path with preferences for collaboration and holistic work, applying dual skills, and opportunities to have relational and organizational impact; (3) students associated the technical career path with preferences for challenge, applying specialized technical skills, and societal impact through technological innovation; and (4) students in majors with higher percentages of women were more likely to express interest in the managerial career path. Our work suggests that women have clear interests and preconceptions about engineering career paths early in their undergraduate education. These findings may hold implications for women students' eventual career decisions and the patterns of intraoccupational gender segregation in engineering industry.

Gaps Between Actual and Preferred Career Paths Among Professional Employees

Organizations are increasingly opting to offer alternative career paths to the traditional managerial ladder (particularly, a technical ladder). Although research has mainly focused on differences between the managerial and technical paths with regard to rewards and prestige, our study focuses on gaps between employees’ actual (current) and preferred career paths, that is, being on the technical path while preferring the managerial path and vice versa. We examine how employees experiencing career path gaps compare with employees experiencing career path fit, in terms of self-rated performance and burnout. The results, based on data from 210 professional employees working in four global high-technology companies, suggest that performance levels are lowest among employees who are currently on the technical career path but would prefer the managerial path, whereas burnout levels are lowest among employees experiencing career path fit. Furthermore, among employees experiencing the former, career path gap, performance is lower when supervisor support is high.

The Sky's the Limit!: Designing Wind Farms: A Hands-On STEM Activity for High School Students

Exposing students at an early age to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) activities has been considered an important factor in influencing them to select a technical career path. The Center for Ultrawide-Area Resilient Electric Energy Transmission Networks (CURENT) is an engineering research center jointly supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and led by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. At CURENT, we plan to develop innovative power grid and electronics activities to engage K-12 students as a way to introduce them to science and technology. For most university educators, such outreach programs are a new experience and could be time-consuming to establish. As a result, our group has assembled a few principles to guide us in devising our wind farm design activities, whose attributes are listed below. Later in this article, we provide information about obtaining activity design materials and a spreadsheet.

Technical vs. Managerial Careers: What Experienced Professionals Say

Forum Experienced professionals evaluate technical vs. managerial careers. The Way Ahead has conducted three surveys among young professionals (YPs) to understand preferences between the technical and managerial career ladder. Approximately two-thirds of respondents sought to pursue a management career. It is estimated that one-third ultimately follow the managerial career path. Why do YPs see management as an attractive career? TWA is trying something new in this Forum section and asked select technical and managerial industry leaders for comments on key questions this survey raised. Let's hear what experienced technical and managerial professionals have to say on this critical subject. A total of 2,799 experienced professionals over 35 years of age responded to the survey—60% are on technical career paths and 40% in management positions. The results are representative at the 95% confidence level with a ± 1.79 margin of error. This survey aims to address questions regarding the technical vs. managerial ladder not previously investigated. All data collected, analyzed, and presented in previous articles, workshops, and papers were missing the perspective of professionals over the age of 35. Oil and gas industry veterans now share their experiences regarding the evolution of their career path and job selections. Responses provide suggestions on how organizations can motivate and retain young professionals (YPs) by effectively communicating the company's view on their potential. This survey is not designed to dissuade YPs from pursuing the management career option, but aims to explore the differences between technical and managerial career paths and share corporate expectations about what is required to succeed in both.

Coping With a Career Plateau: An Empirical Examination of What Works and What Doesn't1

This study examines the relationships between coping responses and organizational outcomes for career‐plateaued and nonplateaued employees. The objective was to determine the efficacy of common coping responses suggested for plateaued employees. Positive activities, such as expanding job assignments, mentoring, functional or technical career paths, and projects or teams, were associated with more positive attitudes and higher perceived performance among plateaued employees. Among nonplateaued employees, there were no significant relationships found. Negative denial responses, such as blaming the supervisor or organization for the plateau, reporting intentions to leave, and use of alcohol or drugs, were associated with lower attitudes and higher career‐related strain among both plateaued and nonplateaued employees. Negative behavioral responses, such as lowering quality or quantity of work, psychological withdrawal, and lateral transfers, were associated with lower attitudes among both groups of employees and lower perceived performance among plateaued employees. Implications for managers and human resource professionals are discussed.

An analysis of IS technical career paths and job satisfaction

Technical career paths have been implemented in Information Systems (IS) departments to address the career development needs of employees whose career aspirations are not met by the traditional managerial career path. Understanding how to meet the needs of the technically oriented IS employee is important to IS career planning and development. Much has been written in both academic and popular literature about what composes a successful technical career path. Equity theory has been used in much of the existing research on technical career paths. This literature suggests that a successful technical career path should provide equitable rewards to those of a managerial career path. The present research establishes scales for four "key success factors" - equitable compensation, career path status, decision making influence, and career planning tool availability --- and examines the relationship of perceived equity of these factors to job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is relevant to an organization because it has been shown to be related to motivation to stay in an organization and organizational commitment. IS personnel on a technical career path were surveyed with regard to their equity perceptions and job satisfaction. Scales for the perception of equity for all four success factors were established. Data analysis showed that only the perception of equity of career planning tool availability is related to job satisfaction for these employees. Implications for management and areas for further research are discussed.

Study of Job Characteristics and Organizational Progressiveness Posture in Singapore and Chinese Companies

As global information technology becomes more pervasive, research on understanding the issues faced by technical personnel around the world becomes important. Increasingly, hardware and software are produced by collaborative work among partners around the world and it becomes critical to keep the technical employees satisfied and empowered on their jobs. This paper reports the results of a study performed with employees of technical companies in China and Singapore to identify the factors that impact their perceptions of job satisfaction and empowerment. A questionnaire was used to obtain responses from 187 employees from technical companies in Singapore and China. The analysis of the responses using Structural Equation Model showed that the employees from both countries perceived that intrinsic job characteristics influenced empowerment positively. Also, the employees perceived a positive relationship between organizational progressiveness and the technical career path. Based on the results, the paper recommends practices that could be followed to enhance empowerment and job characteristics of employees.

Private Sector Scientists and Engineers and the Transition to Management

The authors present and empirically test a self-selection/job matching model of a common transition in the careers of scientists and engineers-the move from technical to managerial jobs. Technical and managerial ability are assumed to be positively but not perfectly correlated, so that technical job performance provides information about both technical and managerial ability upon which to base the decision to become a manager. NSF panel data provides evidence that managerial and technical productivity are positively correlated, and that information received while on the job does influence the worker's selection of a managerial or a technical career path.