This Research-to-Practice Full Paper investigates
engineering students’ career goals and intentions regarding
organizational settings, and how their goals and intentions relate
to their background, learning and contextual measures. Moreover,
despite vocational choice and turnover having been heavily studied
in the literature, few studies have examined how students’ career
goals relate to change in their organizational settings over time and
how these perceptions then influence their turnover intentions. To
fill in this research gap, this paper explores how organizational
setting and respondent aspiration to be in that setting relate to
turnover intentions.
The paper is based on the nationally-representative, longitudinal
Engineering Majors Survey and has a sample size of 350
respondents, characterized as employed and recently graduated
(<2y) from an undergraduate engineering program. Respondents
are categorized in three different alignment groups (Aligned,
Fluid, Unaligned) according to their career goal achievement.
Respondents who are currently employed in the type of
organization, they had imagined being employed at a year earlier
are called Aligned. Respondents who are actually employed in the
type of organization (e.g., small versus large firm) to which they
stated “Might or might not” be employed a year earlier are
classified as Fluid. Finally, respondents, who work in the
organizational setting, which they did not want to work in one year
prior, are called Unaligned. The paper also determines
respondents turnover intentions (Stay, Flexible, Go) related to
organizational settings, such as small companies or medium and
large companies. Alignment and turnover groups were then
compared with each other in relation to background, learning, and
contextual measures. Background measures are gender,
underrepresented minority status, and first generation to college
status. Learning measures are internship experience, and
contextual measures are job satisfaction and grade point average.
The findings suggest that most of these recent graduates are
Aligned and want to Stay in their organizational setting.
Employees in small companies are relatively less Aligned and are
more likely to Go and leave the organizational setting than are
employees in large companies. Respondents who have done an
internship are more often Aligned and less likely want to Go and
leave their organizational setting than those who have not done an
internship. These results suggest that many respondents decide
before graduation on an organizational setting and continue to
desire the same organizational setting after being employed for
some time. Future longitudinal research should compare organizational
settings-based turnover intentions with turnover intentions related
to specific companies, -as a complement to much of the in literature
on turnover intentions mostly refers to leaving specific
organizations.
Keywords: career decisions, labor turnover intentions,
organizational setting, engineering graduates, alignment
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Work in Progress: An Investigation of the Influence of Academic Culture on Engineering Graduates’ Workforce Expectations and Subsequent Work Behaviors
The supply of civil engineering graduates has yet to meet the demand of civil engineering industries within the United States [1]. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted a 7 percent growth within the 2021-2031 decade with about 24,200 job openings available each year [2], but only an estimated 21,561 civil engineering degrees were awarded in the U.S. in 2020 [3]. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in employees quitting their jobs at higher rates than ever historically recorded [4]; this has been further observed in the civil engineering industry [5]. A research survey conducted by the Future World Vision showed that employees with less work experience (5 years or less) were most likely to resign from their positions and the civil engineering profession entirely [6].
Previous studies have examined engineering graduates’ retention in their professions as subsets of individual values and circumstance. However, there is limited research analyzing the overarching
organizational culture of engineering colleges that may influence the expectations and outcomes of engineering graduates in industry. Organizational culture describes the customs and values
unique to an organization [7, pp. 565]. These aspects of organizations can encourage or inhibit organizational success. Schönborn found that “there [were] specific sets of attitudes, values, and
artifacts that differentiate[d] successful from unsuccessful companies” [8]. This work-in-progress expands on Schönborn’s findings in hypothesizing that there are specific cultural norms and values
adopted by students in engineering colleges that differ from those of engineering industries, and those differences may affect if and how early career engineers successfully transition to
engineering careers.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1929727
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10464383
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- American society for engineering education
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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This Research-to-Practice Full Paper investigates engineering students’ career goals and intentions regarding organizational settings, and how their goals and intentions relate to their background, learning and contextual measures. Moreover, despite vocational choice and turnover having been heavily studied in the literature, few studies have examined how students’ career goals relate to change in their organizational settings over time and how these perceptions then influence their turnover intentions. To fill in this research gap, this paper explores how organizational setting and respondent aspiration to be in that setting relate to turnover intentions. The paper is based on the nationally-representative, longitudinal Engineering Majors Survey and has a sample size of 350 respondents, characterized as employed and recently graduated (<2y) from an undergraduate engineering program. Respondents are categorized in three different alignment groups (Aligned, Fluid, Unaligned) according to their career goal achievement. Respondents who are currently employed in the type of organization, they had imagined being employed at a year earlier are called Aligned. Respondents who are actually employed in the type of organization (e.g., small versus large firm) to which they stated “Might or might not” be employed a year earlier are classified as Fluid. Finally, respondents, who work in the organizational setting, which they did not want to work in one year prior, are called Unaligned. The paper also determines respondents turnover intentions (Stay, Flexible, Go) related to organizational settings, such as small companies or medium and large companies. Alignment and turnover groups were then compared with each other in relation to background, learning, and contextual measures. Background measures are gender, underrepresented minority status, and first generation to college status. Learning measures are internship experience, and contextual measures are job satisfaction and grade point average. The findings suggest that most of these recent graduates are Aligned and want to Stay in their organizational setting. Employees in small companies are relatively less Aligned and are more likely to Go and leave the organizational setting than are employees in large companies. Respondents who have done an internship are more often Aligned and less likely want to Go and leave their organizational setting than those who have not done an internship. These results suggest that many respondents decide before graduation on an organizational setting and continue to desire the same organizational setting after being employed for some time. Future longitudinal research should compare organizational settings-based turnover intentions with turnover intentions related to specific companies, -as a complement to much of the in literature on turnover intentions mostly refers to leaving specific organizations. Keywords: career decisions, labor turnover intentions, organizational setting, engineering graduates, alignmentmore » « less
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