The Impact of Socio-cultural Differences on the Management of Technical Error: Are Engineering Graduates Aware of This?

A great deal of literature exists related to what an individual should do if they make technical errors at work, but what should they do if their supervisor or manager is the person making the mistake? This paper investigates the socio-cultural influences on the way engineers respond to the above scenario. Whilst research has been undertaken on leadership, manager-employee and supervisor-supervisee relationships in a variety of sectors including education, health care and hospitality, no such studies have been carried out in the engineering sector. Engineers, in general, are not aware on the importance of social and cultural dimensions of their work because they are not seen as a ‘technical problem’. Engineering education is largely restricted to technical analysis and students learn very little on how engineering work is practiced. However, engineering education and engineering practice are very much interrelated. It is hoped that by better understanding of the work of engineers, further steps can be taken to improve the quality of engineering education, bringing it closer to engineering practice. Activities such as role-play could be used to engage students and better prepare them for the “real” world. Qualitative research methods used in this study are based on data from interviews and field observations with engineers in Brunei and Western Australia. This paper will discuss preliminary analysis of this data.

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