Assessment of Organizational Change for Public Construction Organizations

This paper explores change management for restructuring a public construction organization. The paper presents a model for organizational change and studies 20 change-management parameters for three engineering management levels—area engineers, project managers, and project engineers. The researchers studied the perception of engineers and the change process from initiation through completion, starting with forces that destabilize, spreading to awareness and management of anxiety, then acceptance and management of tasks, and finishing with integration and restart. These were examined quantitatively and qualitatively. The study concluded that engineers realize that changes are necessary but they perceive change management negatively. Though most engineers are aware of and committed to change, they perceive the communication of changes to be poor. Recommendations were made to adopt a participative style, improve the commitment of upper leadership, and apply incentives to implement changes. The organizational change model provides a simplified approach for any organization going through the process of change and reengineering.     

Effect of relative magnitude of reward and type of need on satisfaction.

Tested the hypothesis of an interaction between type of need and magnitude of relative reward in their effect on level of satisfaction. It was predicted that there would be gradually increasing differences between satisfaction scores of large vs small magnitude of relative reward as the need was located in a higher position on A. Maslow's (1954) need hierarchy (excluding the self-actualization need). The analysis of the reactions of 40 female married 18-40 yr old undergraduates to a questionnaire designed for this purpose confirmed the hypothesis. Findings are discussed in terms of the social comparison and Maslow's hierarchy theories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the Job versus Graduate School Training of Forensic Engineers—An Instructor and Professional Engineer’s View

This paper provides insights from a graduate forensic engineering course for civil engineers and analyses its success from the instructor and student perspectives. The objective of the study was to evaluate teaching methods and settings for training of forensic engineers in light of new body of knowledge needs for the profession. The assessment methodology used student feedback before, during, and after the semester-long course and the instructor’s observations and prior forensic engineering consulting experience. The course was structured around student learning objectives that paralleled actual engineer training in professional consulting firms. The students used hands-on learning, field investigations, library-based research, and report writing. Focus was placed on learning basic research skills and applying scientific method which were at low levels among students. This is of concern to the profession as these skills, along with analytical ability, form part of the basic tool set of most engineers. By the end of the course, writing and review skills had improved significantly and student perceptions of the specialized skills turned more favorable. The students overwhelmingly appreciated inclusion of guest lectures by forensic engineers to demonstrate the relevance of this field. It was concluded that inadequate technical writing and reading skills, symptomatic of students in many engineering programs can be corrected through a forensic engineering course.     

Changing the Status Quo in Environmental Engineering Education in Response to Emerging Markets

The job market and skill needs have been expanding for environmental engineers requiring more interdisciplinary training and global citizenship. The 1970s was a decade of regulatory activities, the 1980s was a decade of major environmental disasters, the 1990s was a decade for global awakening, and the first decade of the 21st century is becoming the decade of concern for increasing global environmental stress. In parallel with the environmental trends, the environmental engineering programs have evolved from strictly water/wastewater focus to interdisciplinary programs with a wide selection of courses such as computer science, meteorology, aquatic biology, and ecology in addition to the classical environmental engineering curriculum. Advancements in science and technology, changing demographics, new delivery structures, changes in educational programs and policies, new regulatory requirements, increased global interactions, and recent large scale events with significant environmental impacts have increased the needs for engineers who are trained in environmental engineering discipline with adequate skills for addressing the emerging challenges. This technical note presents the emerging job markets and the corresponding skill needs for environmental engineers to respond to current and evolving environmental challenges both at regional and global scales.     

Linkages between Construction Engineering Education and Research

The needs of the construction industry require that an appropriate balance be provided between construction engineering topics and management topics in both education and research. Because construction is less mature as a research area compared to other areas in civil engineering, limitations on research funding have made the investigation of construction management topics more feasible in comparison to construction engineering topics. Because faculty members are drawn from the pool of Ph.D. students who have primarily researched management topics, there has been a tendency for them to continue emphasis on management topics in both education and research. Other civil engineering disciplines form their research programs around the needs of design codes and standards’ development, and academic participation is high. Similar efforts exist within construction engineering; however, there is less academic participation. It is suggested that greater effort be invested in the improvement of construction process standards and specifications so that construction engineering research efforts can advance construction process standards and stimulate increased engineering educational exposure. It is also suggested that academics who are interested in construction engineering research should consider participating in the specification improvement processes that occur at the national and state levels. A process for wider participation in construction engineering research and standards development is recommended.     

Demographics and Industry Employment of Civil Engineering Workforce

This paper provides a road map to studies and databases about civil engineering demographics and industry involvement by tracing workforce statistics, engineering degrees, data on industries and government, and economic forecasts. It is aimed at helping civil engineering managers, educators, and policy makers understand how their workforce evolved and what it will face in the future. The engineering workforce comprises about 1.5 million professionals in the United States (second in size only to that of teachers); of this number, civil engineering, at about 200,000 workers, is third behind electrical and mechanical engineering. However, the study shows that aggregation of workforce and economic statistics hides unique characteristics of civil engineering work caused by the concentration on consulting and state and local government. In fact, over 80% of civil engineers work either for consultants or government. This characteristic of civil engineering employment needs more study, particularly to determine how best to educate civil engineers to respond to the public–private arena of infrastructure and environment. During the past century, civil engineering has been a steady field with good opportunities, but civil engineers in the future will face the same career issues and pressures as other professionals. Global production of new engineers has now passed the one million-per-year mark, with U.S. production being about 12% of the total. This large supply of engineers will present intense competition to all engineering disciplines. ASCE faces many challenges to respond to the many changes in the civil engineering profession. The concept of institutes contained in ASCE's strategic plan will address many of the technical issues, but the study indicates that professional and educational issues need more attention.     

A study of perceived need satisfactions in bottom and middle management jobs.

How do management perceptions of need satisfaction and importance vary by level of management? 139 supervisors and middle management individuals in 3 companies were sent a questionnaire constructed to measure needs in a hierarchy compared to one described by Maslow. Middle managers fulfilled, more often than did bottom managers, needs for esteem, security, and autonomy. "The highest-order need of self-actualization is the most critical need area of those studied, in terms of both perceived deficiency in fulfillment and perceived importance to the individual, in both bottom and middle management." From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2LI01P. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Model of Integrating Humanitarian Development into Engineering Education

Entering the first half of the 21st century, the engineering profession must embrace a new mission statement—to contribute to the building of a more sustainable, stable, and equitable world. In particular, the engineering profession needs to train a new generation of engineers who can better meet the challenges of the developing world and address the needs of the most destitute people on our planet. This paper presents a model of integrating humanitarian development into engineering education based on our experience with Engineers Without Borders-U.S.A. and the development of the Engineering for Developing Communities program at the University of Colorado at Boulder over the past eight years. We also review some like-minded programs in U.S. universities and discuss how such programs can be integrated into engineering education.     

Earthbound Civil Engineering Experience for Space Applications

Since the dawn of civilization, the civil engineering profession has served mankind. Civil engineers have provided humanity with safe, reliable, and economical facilities and a livable environment. This paper seeks to outline the potential applications of various Earth‐based civil engineering fields for the engineering, construction, and operation of facilities in space stations in Earth orbit, bases on the Moon and Mars, and the exploration of other extraterrestrial bodies. On Earth, civil engineers have played a key role in design, construction, and operation of ground‐support facilities since the beginning of the space program. The vast and diverse Earth‐based knowledge and experience earned by civil engineers could be applied to create a suitable infrastructure in space to satisfy human needs. Therefore, civil engineers can play a significant role in the future expansion of human endeavors into space. The time has come for civil engineers throughout the world to come together; take the challenge posed by time, human needs, and ambition; and extend their joint expertise toward large‐scale projects in space for the benefit of all.     

Embedding Leadership in Civil Engineering Education

Leadership is a key element in meeting the needs of the civil engineering profession in an era of heightened global competition. Consulting and construction executives intent on maintaining a competitive edge are calling upon educators to produce civil engineers capable of leading multidisciplinary teams, combining technical ingenuity with business acumen, and effectively communicating narrow engineering endeavors within a comprehensive social framework. Our industry is challenging undergraduate schools to broaden curricula beyond the intellectual endeavors of design and scientific inquiry to the greater domain of professional leadership. Many agree that formal leader development must be incorporated into engineering education programs to respond to the professional demands of practicing engineers; however, the means of achieving the objectives within tightly constrained curricula are debated. This paper explores the changing nature of civil engineering in a globally competitive environment, reviews the issues in realigning civil engineering education, identifies key leadership skills relevant to engineering, and proposes solutions for developing leaders at our undergraduate institutions.     

Age differences in motivation related to Maslow's need hierarchy.

Changes in motivation related to age differences and their relationship to A. Maslow's (1943–1971) hierarchy of needs were investigated with 111 Ss 9–80 yrs old, divided into 5 age groups (children, adolescents, young adults, middle-aged adults, old adults). Using the Life Motivation Scale, Ss ranked statements representing Maslow's 5 needs on 11 life components. ANOVAs (Age?×?Sex) yielded significant developmental differences for 4 needs but gave only limited support to Maslow's theory as a developmental model. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Basic Research Needs in Construction Engineering

The National Science Foundation and the Construction Research Council of the American Society of Civil Engineers sponsored a workshop for leading academic researchers to discuss basic research needs in the construction industry. The workshop, held at The University of Michigan, dealt with issues within five primary categories: (1) Definition of basic research in construction engineering and management; (2) basic research needs in construction engineering management; (3) construction engineering analysis and design; (4) construction engineering uncertainty; and (5) construction engineering human resource management. The participants identified a list of items of a basic nature that require research to develop the theoretical underpinnings of construction practice. A summary of the list of research needs is reported in the paper.     

Developing Cross-Cultural Communication Skills

Engineers have traditionally focused on hard-skill knowledge acquisition, but the increasingly multicultural work practices of professional engineers now demand better soft-skill proficiency, such as foreign language ability, communication confidence, and cross-cultural experience. Students and staff within a university engineering department were surveyed to identify how cross-cultural language use potentially impacted academic and communication performance. The results indicate that engineering faculties may be concentrating on subject content at the expense of facilitating the development of soft skills. The findings suggest that students do experience problems with communication skills that may be exacerbated when studying in a second language. Lecturers need to become more energized to introduce innovative curriculum schemes, more proactive in developing challenging learning approaches, and more willing to integrate cross-cultural, language, and communication skills training into traditional engineering contexts. This case study has implications for any university engineering department where students are taught either partially or solely in a second language and where issues of communication and culture are recognized as impacting the professional development of engineers for the global workplace.     

On the Shoulders of Giants—Part IV

The education of future civil engineers is incomplete without an appreciation of the men who created the profession of civil engineering in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This paper is a “history module” designed to introduce the history and heritage of civil engineering into existing course work. The fourth in a series, this module traces our understanding of column behavior and the development of a range of equations used to analyze and design columns of various lengths and materials. It begins in the time of Euler and has no end, since engineers have not yet adopted a single equation that covers all lengths and materials. The first three modules dealt with the development of the truss, the Manning formula, and the flexure formula. It is my hope that additional modules will be written and packaged by ASCE for distribution to engineering faculty around the country.     

Multinational Engineering Consortia: Selecting Team Members

Increasingly in our integrated global economy, civil engineers are being assigned as team members in multinational consortia. Trying to work effectively in a cross-cultural setting is stressful and potentially debilitating; hence, care must be taken to select team members capable of adapting successfully to cultural change. Various predictors of success are provided to assist North American firms in selecting engineers and their families for international assignments. In addition, a number of steps are suggested to ease their transition into the multinational team and adaptation to the host country. Civil engineering programs at universities and professional development provided by technical societies can contribute to improved multinational consortia by “internationalizing” their offerings. This step reduces ethnocentrism and promotes a deeper respect for the needs and approaches used by engineers from other cultures.     

Integration of Construction As-Built Data Via Laser Scanning with Geotechnical Monitoring of Urban Excavation

The demand for urban underground space has been increasing in the past decades to create living space and to avoid traffic congestion. A critical concern during the design and development of the underground space is the influence of construction-related ground movements on neighboring facilities and utilities. Currently, engineers can estimate ground movements using a combination of semiempirical methods and numerical model simulation. However, these advanced analyses require accurate as-built construction staging data, which most projects lack. The traditional approach of collecting construction-staging data is both labor intensive and time consuming. This paper explores the use of three-dimensional laser scanning technology to accurately capture construction activities during development of an urban excavation. The paper describes the planning, execution, and data processing phases of collecting accurate construction as-built staging information over a period of 4?months at an urban excavation site in Evanston, Ill. The resulting data provide an unprecedented level of detail on the as-built site conditions and provide much needed information to civil engineering disciplines involved in an urban excavation including construction management and structural and geotechnical engineering.     

Self-actualization level as a predictor of practicum supervision effectiveness.

20 counseling students at high and low levels of self-actualization (as measured by the Personal Orientation Inventory) were randomly assigned to high or low self-actualizing supervisors to assess the effects of such assignment on change in self-actualization during the course of the beginning practicum semester. A control group of 5 counseling students not enrolled in the practicum were also pre- and posttested to assess their change in self-actualization during the same semester. It was assumed that counselor growth in self-actualization would be affected by the level of self-actualization of the supervisor. Results do not support this assumption. Counseling students tended to gain in self-actualization whether or not they were enrolled in a practicum and regardless of the level of self-actualization of the supervisors to whom they were assigned. Evidence linking counseling effectiveness and self-actualization is advanced; speculation about supervision effectiveness and self-actualization requires further testing. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accounting for Human Error during Design and Construction

Three approaches to addressing human errors during engineering design and construction are presented. The first is a mathematical model to investigate the effect of error in load or resistance on the reliability of the designed facility. With this technique, researchers can account for the effect of errors given statistical data on their occurrence. The second approach, scenario analysis, assumes different error scenarios and calculates the corresponding failure probabilities. This analysis can be used to improve quality-assurance programs by evaluating the significance of errors. As an alternative to these quantitative though limited techniques for application, a framework to reduce the frequency of human errors is suggested. The objective of this approach is to minimize the frequency of human errors through a better understanding of human behavior in organizations. The purpose of this paper is then to (1) provide a simple mathematical tool for researchers to investigate human errors; (2) provide a tool for engineers to improve quality-assurance programs; and (3) suggest a strategy for management to reduce the frequency of occurrence of human errors.     

The development of a multifaceted measure of rehabilitation effectiveness: Theoretical rationale and scale construction.

Describes the construction and validation of the Human Service Scale, a test of a theory of rehabilitation outcome, using the responses of 1,018 15–60 yr old clients of vocational rehabilitation agencies in 29 states and 1 territory. It was found that clients' responses were similar to Maslow's (1970) categories of basic human needs and that the study can be considered a partial test of the validity of applying Maslow's theory to the measurement of rehabilitation effectiveness. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)