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Increasingly, on‐the‐job experiences are being recognised as the most significant source for learning how to perform complex jobs. To accelerate the development of engineers worldwide and to counter the lengthier and less predictable results of “business as usual,” Mobile Oil has taken a systematic, focused approach to on‐the‐job development. Particular attention is given to foreign locations where there is strong emphasis on indigenisation and transfer of technology. A unique competency approach has been used to benchmark outstanding performance in engineering jobs and provide a common language for development discussions. The development process emphasises challenging assignments and supervisory coaching. The programme consists of a recurring cycle of systematic assessments of engineers; feedback and development discussions between engineers and their supervisors; development plans integrated with work unit objectives; and a resource guide that provides development options. Key organisational issues of implementation are described. Features which characterise successful programmes are identified and analysed.

The area of engineering and managerial needs of companies are focused on, and how the often conflicting engineering, business and managerial demands can be developed into a successful long‐term relationship. The concept of career management and the way in which it can be promoted and controlled is outlined. A number of practical points that companies and graduates can use to improve the management development process are given.

The search for a more sustainable society depends on more sustainable organisations and, as such, Production (Industrial) Engineering may contribute to this process through the training of professionals with a greater social and environmental consciousness. The purpose of this paper is to present arguments in favour of the integration of Production Engineering and the Millennium Development Goals and evaluate the potential of Production Engineering subareas in contributing to the Millennium Development Goals.

This work is conceptual and integrative in order to provide an original framework. A Brazilian perspective on Production Engineering has been adopted.

A framework is proposed to guide this integration process by providing suggestions for an agenda of opportunities for academics and practitioners in favour of a more sustainable society.

This work presents a new framework integrating Production Engineering and the Millennium Development Goals in order to promote a more sustainable training in Production (Industrial) Engineering field of research.

This paper aims to explore the differences in first-year and senior engineering students’ engineering agency beliefs and career goals related to sustainable development. The authors also sought to understand how topics related to sustainable development in engineering courses affect senior engineering students’ goals to address these issues in their careers. This work provides evidence of how students’ agency beliefs may be shaped by higher education, which is essential to workforce development.

Findings stem from two national surveys of engineering first-year (Sustainability and Gender in Engineering, n = 7,709) and senior students (Student Survey about Career Goals, College Experiences, n = 4,605). The authors compared both groups using pairwise testing by class standing.

The results indicate that undergraduate studies tend to reinforce students’ engineering agency beliefs to improve their quality of life and preserve the environment. Significantly more senior students selected career goals to address environmental issues compared to first-year students. In general, students undervalue their roles as engineers in addressing issues related to social inequities. Those topics are rarely addressed in engineering courses. Findings from this work suggest discussing sustainability in courses positively impact setting career goals to address such challenges.

The study compares results from two distinct surveys, conveyed at different periods. Nonetheless, the sample size and national spread of respondents across US colleges and universities are robust to offer relevant insights on sustainable development in engineering education.

Adapting engineering curriculum by ensuring that engineering students are prepared to confront global problems related to sustainable development in their careers will have a positive societal impact.

This study highlights shortcomings of engineering education in promoting social and economic sustainability as related to the engineering field. Educational programs would benefit from emphasizing the interconnectedness of environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainable development. This approach could increase diversity in engineering education and the industry, and by ripple effect, benefit the communities and local governance.

This work is a first step toward understanding how undergraduate experiences impact students’ engineering agency beliefs and career goals related to sustainability. It explores potential factors that could increase students’ engineering agency and goals to make a change through engineering.

Engineering is a powerful instrument for promoting the social and economic development of nations. Its enhancement is a strategic element to accelerate Brazil’s progress. This paper aims to present a new perspective on the topic of “Engineering and Development in Brazil, Challenges and Prospects” (Guimarães et al., 2007). Its goal is to discuss the need for restructuring the Brazilian system for research, development and innovation (RD&I) and the training of human resources in engineering in the country.

This article is designed to discuss the relations between the performance of the industrial sector and the maturation of engineering in Brazil by looking at the national scientific production in the area in comparison to the world production and to countries (South Korea and The Netherlands). Finally, in terms of training human resources, the Brazilian study abroad program Science without Borders program is discussed in the article as an important tool for the qualification of engineering students in Brazil.

A few of the main findings in this research are as follows: despite being among the top 20 countries in scientific production in Engineering, Brazil still lacks turning this scientific-technological knowledge into products and patents; Brazilian universities and research institutes must build interorganizational collaborations with the industrial sector to increase innovation in the field of engineering; The distribution of the investment in RD&I in engineering must be strategically distributed among its various fields, taking into account national strategies and the technological interrelations between them. The article concludes that engineering is a powerful instrument for promoting a country’s social development while offering indications about Brazilian strategic orientation in the development of engineering.

Despite already being well known that engineering is a powerful instrument for promoting a country’s social development, this article innovates by associating academic scientific production in engineering to other variables related to economic development, such as gross domestic product, human development index, industrial and manufactured production and the filing of patents. It comes at an important moment when the Brazilian Government is discussing new strategies to increase social and economic development in the country while controlling for the investment in RD&I. Therefore, it is the right moment to discuss national policies in science, technology and innovation, especially in the area of engineering.

To show the key points of a development education program for engineering studies fitted within the framework of the human development paradigm.

The bases of the concept of technology for human development are presented, and the relationship with development education analysed. Special attention is dedicated to the role of case studies in engineering courses. After that, the development education program pushed by the Civil Engineering School of Barcelona and Engineering without Borders is explained, focusing on two major contributions: two optional courses about international aid and development and nine classroom case studies about different technologies used in real co‐operation projects.

This work provides a conceptual basis for incorporating development education into engineering studies, a general overview of different activities promoted in Spanish technical universities and practical information about optional courses and classroom case studies.

The proposal is based on the experience in Spanish engineering curricula (mostly in five‐year degrees). Some of the topics covered by the courses and the case studies can be better adapted at postgraduate level in three‐ or four‐year degrees.

It is shown that development education can be incorporated into engineering studies through different specific non‐expensive activities.

This work presents and puts in context the development education activities pushed coordinately between a non‐governmental organization and an engineering school. Thus, it can be of major interest for both teachers and workers of the international development field.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on understanding how value creation can be improved by developing dynamic capabilities in product development, in the case of a software engineering process.

The methodology involves a single‐case, longitudinal empirical study by progression of cycles of action research and data collection during a seven‐year period (1 January 2004‐31 November 2010), comprising 55 corporate projects.

This study will provide significant new information about value creation in multi‐disciplined product development. The study integrates value considerations into the principles and practices of software engineering, implements the aspect of dynamic capabilities in a software engineering process in order to create and sustain competitive advantage. As a result of the study, a model of value creation for software engineering process is created and guidelines are established.

The contextual features were strongly present during the research process, which means that the model created needs to be tested in other settings by other researchers.

The results of the study provide management with guidelines for developing and maintaining the importance of value creation in the software engineering process.

The paper presents a new model of value creation for the software engineering process in product development, through which competitive advantage is created and sustained.

The aim of this paper is to make an attempt to find good values of onsite–offshore team strength; number of hours of communication between business users and onsite team and between onsite and offshore team to reduce cost and improve schedule for re-engineering projects in global software development environment.

The system dynamics technique is used for simulation model construction and policy run experimentation. The experts from Indian software outsourcing industry were consulted for model construction, validation and analysis of policy run results in both co-located and distributed software development environment.

The study results show that there is a drop in the overall team productivity in outsourcing environment by considering the offshore options. But the project cost can be reduced by employing the offshore team for coding and testing work only with minimal training for imparting business knowledge. The research results show that there is a potential to save project cost by being flexible in project schedule.

The study found that there could be substantial cost saving for re-engineering projects with a loss of project schedule when an appropriate onsite–offshore combination is used. The quality and productivity drop, however, were rather small for such combinations. The cost savings are high when re-engineering work is sent to offshore location entirely after completion of requirement analysis work at onsite location and providing training to offshore team in business knowledge The research findings show that there is potential to make large cost savings by being flexible in project schedule for re-engineering projects.

The software project manager can use the model results to divide the software team between onsite and offshore location during various phases of software development in distributed environment.

The study is novel as there is little attempt at finding the team distribution between onsite and offshore location in global software development environment.

This study aims to examine the impacts of education for sustainable development subject(s) offered at University A, Japan and University B, Malaysia on the attitude and perception toward environment, social and economic issues of sustainability among the engineering undergraduates of the institutions from different countries.

A questionnaire survey was administered to 108 engineering students at University A, Japan and 117 engineering students at University B, Malaysia to measure their attitudes and perceptions toward sustainability.

The findings suggested that the sustainable development courses offered at University A, Japan, have developed positive attitudes and perceptions on environmental and social sustainability issues. The subjects on sustainable development offered at University B, Malaysia have developed positive attitudes and perceptions on the environmental issues of sustainability. Respondents from both universities, Japan and Malaysia, have not properly developed positive attitudes and perceptions toward economic sustainability issues. The findings also revealed that geographical boundaries have no influence toward the development of the attitude and perception toward sustainability issues.

This study provides insight into the attitude and perception toward the three pillars – environment, social and economic – of sustainability among engineering undergraduates from two different institutions of two different countries that apply different pedagogic strategies in education for sustainable development in educating undergraduates on sustainable development.

The paper aims to examine the current status and development of sustainable development in Finnish engineering education.

The study consists of interviews with key stakeholders supplemented with the analysis of documented material. Development is discussed in relation to the findings of collaborative strategy process in the year 2009.

The paper observes that the Finnish universities providing engineering education are committed to sustainable development in their strategies. However, a lot of work remains to be done before the strategies are implemented and sustainable development is integrated to all degree programs. Explicit knowledge and individual learning in clearly defined disciplinary boundaries have been the main focus of engineering education.

The paper suggests that engineers need to be provided with mental tools to cope with uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Key competencies include holistic understanding, communication and collaboration skills, ability and willingness for critical and reflective thinking, creativity, innovativeness and entrepreneurship. Thus, collaborative learning, open dialogue and innovation are at the heart of education for sustainable development.

This paper has a relatively wide approach as it analyses sustainable development in the context of Finnish engineering education both on institutional and societal levels and is based on a national project.