A significant amount can be learned
about one’s own culture through the study of another. In particular, I have
been studying business students’ perception of engineers to learn more about
the interactions of these two groups. Collaboration between businessmen and
engineers is especially important in the workplace as effective teams require
people of diverse skills. Now that sufficient observation and study on the
topic has been completed, previously discussed concepts can be reviewed and
examined, new remarks can be discussed, and some important conclusions can be
made.
Previous work studied how the
topics of personal identity, value orientation, and communication type were
applied to businessmen-engineer interactions. An interview with a UNL business
student, Dylan McAugherty, revealed that business people can be extremely goal
oriented and often label engineers as “that nerdy group” (personal
communication, October 19th, 2012). Additionally, value orientations
of each group sometimes rely on a specific person’s role within that group. For
example, the amount of uncertainty avoidance observed in an accountant would be
different than that of a marketing student, even though they are both under the
larger umbrella of business students. More recent observations provide further
support for some of these suppositions but also have created new hypotheses.
In addition to previously performed
interviews, an interview was conducted with another UNL student,
Donnie Earl. Throughout the interview, Donnie expressed his belief that
engineers generally work very hard to achieve their goals. He seemed to exhibit
a lot of respect for what engineers are able to accomplish and how they go
about their profession (personal communication, November 15th, 2012).
Interestingly, this supposition contradicts what Dylan’s observations on
engineers. Furthermore, Donnie also mentioned that he does think engineers and
business do try to talk differently when interacting with each other to enhance
communication. This is effectively a form of code switching, which according to
Martin, refers to the “phenomenon of changing languages, dialects, or even
accents” (2012).
My field observations seem to
indicate that the cultural differences between business students and engineers
are really not that significant. I spent a couple hours essentially roaming
around the CBA building. Various amounts of time were spent in different study
areas and social areas. Frankly, I didn't notice anything much different from
what might be an average day in the engineering block. In most areas students
could be seen diligently working on homework or casually talking with each
other (Evan Hilgemann, observation data, November 12th, 2012). It
follows that the cultural differences between engineers and businessmen are not
as large in relaxed social settings as they might be in a professional group. I
think that this hypothesis makes logical sense. In professional settings,
pressure can be high to get the job one and friction can occur between people
that have different ways of solving problems. However, in a social setting,
people can generally just be, well, people. There’s no need competition on the
best way to achieve a goal. I think social groups, like that I observed in CBA
and can be seen in Nebraska Hall, generally are a mechanism for people to relax
and an area where people don’t necessarily need to live up to their cultural
stereotypes. Using the following Dilbert
comic as an example, the engineer likely feels that it is his job to fix the ‘problem’,
this may not occur in a social group where an engineer may not feel that they
need to fulfill the role of problem fixer.
Given the amount of information
that has been collected, one can make three important generalized conclusions
on the interactions between businessmen and engineers. First off, it is obvious
that there are some notable differences between the two groups, especially when
it comes to workplace interactions. Dylan McAugherty indicated that engineers
are generally viewed with some incredulity, in that they are perceived as
socially inept and “probably not worth talking to anyway” (personal
communication, October 19th, 2012). Communication can be difficult
between engineers and businessmen. Engineers have a tendency to speak in more
technical terms and use more specific language. Donnie Earl indicated that code
switching is common between engineers and businessmen to help with communication
issues.
Secondly, it can be stated that the
labels “engineer” and “businessmen” are largely diffuse terms and do not work
very well to indicate a specific group of people. For example, many engineers
start their careers in a technical profession. However, they later make the
decision to go back to school, earn a management degree, and advance through
the business management ranks. It begs to ask whether these people would be
considered engineers or businessmen. Expanding on this point, Sasha Gurke makes
a reasoned argument on why engineers make the best business leaders on the
business oriented website, the Business
Insider. Burke states that 20% of
the Fortune 500 CEOs have engineering degrees and references notable American
engineers/businessmen like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison (2011).
Lastly, the interviews and personal
observations prove that engineers and business people do indeed have a
significant amount in common and there is an amount of mutual respect between
the groups. For example Donnie Earl indicated that he thinks people have a
significant amount of respect for what engineers are able to accomplish (personal
communication, November 15th, 2012). It seems apparent that the
differences between engineers and businessmen start to dissolve when people are
put into more social settings. This was observed throughout the CBA building.
In the end it comes down to people eventually wanting to act just as people,
and not be defined by engineers, businessmen, or otherwise.
In conclusion, the interactions
between businessmen and engineers are certainly important. They are vital to
the successful operation of almost any professional venture. The two groups
have their differences, but of course, those differences can be easily overcome
through effective knowledge of one situation and a firm grasp of effective
communication strategies.
And finally, since I can’t get enough of Dilbert, here’s another
good one:
Adams, S. (2012, November 16th). Dilbert. Retrieved from http://dilbert.com/
Gurke, S. (2012, December 19). Why engineers could make the best business leaders. Retrieved from
http://articles.businessinsider.com
Martin, J.N.,
& Nakayama, T. K. (2012). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed.).
Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.
