The Entrepreneurial Engineer: A Quantitative Analysis of Personality Factors in the Social Cognitive Career Theory
- Conference
- Location
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Salt Lake City, Utah
- Publication Date
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June 23, 2018
- Start Date
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June 23, 2018
- End Date
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July 27, 2018
- Conference Session
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Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation Division Technical Session 2
- Tagged Division
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Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation
- Page Count
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32
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--31098
- Permanent URL
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https://strategy.asee.org/31098
- Download Count
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859
Paper Authors
Leon Szeli Stanford University
Leon Szeli is a researcher at Stanford University. His research focuses on the intersection of Human Behaviour, Innnovation and Technology. He studied Psychology and Communication Science at LMU Munich as well as Consumer Affairs at Technical University Munich. Currently, Leon is pursuing an Honors Degree in Technology Management at the Center for Digital Technology Management (CDTM) which is funded by Elite Network of Bavaria. Leon worked on multiple innovation projects for a wide range of companies such as Siemens AI Lab, Munich Re, Fraunhofer Venture and BMW. Additionally, he co-founded HIGGS Live Inc., a company developing a software for mobile livestreaming.
Shannon Katherine Gilmartin
Stanford University
orcid.org/0000-0001-8925-3271
Shannon K. Gilmartin, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scholar at the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research and Adjunct Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. She is also Managing Director of SKG Analysis, a research consulting firm. Her expertise and interests focus on education and workforce development in engineering and science fields. Previous and current clients include the American Chemical Society, the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, California Institute of Technology, the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at California State University Fullerton, the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education at Stanford University, the School of Medicine at Stanford University, and the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Helen L. Chen Stanford University
Helen L. Chen is a research scientist in the Designing Education Lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Director of ePortfolio Initiatives in the Office of the Registrar at Stanford University. She is also a member of the research team in the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter). Chen earned her undergraduate degree from UCLA and her Ph.D. in Communication with a minor in Psychology from Stanford University in 1998. Her current research interests include: 1) engineering and entrepreneurship education; 2) the pedagogy of ePortfolios and reflective practice in higher education; and 3) reimagining the traditional academic transcript.
Sheri Sheppard Stanford University
Sheri D. Sheppard, Ph.D., P.E., is professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. Besides teaching both undergraduate and graduate design and education related classes at Stanford University, she conducts research on engineering education and work-practices, and applied finite element analysis. From 1999-2008 she served as a Senior Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, leading the Foundation’s engineering study (as reported in Educating Engineers: Designing for the Future of the Field). In addition, in 2011 Dr. Sheppard was named as co-PI of a national NSF innovation center (Epicenter), and leads an NSF program at Stanford on summer research experiences for high school teachers. Her industry experiences includes engineering positions at Detroit's "Big Three:" Ford Motor Company, General Motors Corporation, and Chrysler Corporation.
At Stanford she has served a chair of the faculty senate, and recently served as Associate Vice Provost for Graduate Education.
Abstract
Which personality traits foster Entrepreneurship in Engineering? What implications for Engineering/Entrepreneurship Education can be derived? Until today, a lot of the research about Personality and Entrepreneurship compared Entrepreneurs to Managers. This work focuses on Engineers and combines two validated constructs: the Big Five Personality Traits (BFPT: Openness to new experiences, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Emotional Stability (Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003)) and the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994)). The research question is: How can we describe the relationship between the BFPT and SCCT constructs? We conducted a (mainly quantitative) online-survey (n=465) among Alumni of the ("University") School of Engineering who graduated between 1 and 17 years ago and who had successfully the course ME203: Design and Manufacturing. Over 20 percent of the respondents had founded a venture. Results show that three out of the five personality traits have a significant positive relationship to certain SCCT constructs: a. Openness to new experiences and Extraversion are correlated to Entrepreneurial Self Efficacy, Entrepreneurial Intention, Entrepreneurial Outcome Expectations, Innovation Self Efficacy and Entrepreneurial Learning Experiences. and b. Emotional Stability correlated to Innovation Self Efficacy and Entrepreneurial Learning Experiences. Finally, we draw practical implications of these relationships for Entrepreneurship and Engineering Education, while at the same time keeping in mind that you cannot just “make” someone an Entrepreneur or change his or her personality. This paper is an explorative starting point that results in various findings that suggest future research. We recommend focusing on the three personality traits that showed significant results.
Szeli, L., & Gilmartin, S. K., & Chen, H. L., & Sheppard, S. (2018, June), The Entrepreneurial Engineer: A Quantitative Analysis of Personality Factors in the Social Cognitive Career Theory Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--31098
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