FROM PRODUCTION ENGINEERING TO FINANCIAL ENGINEERING: PREPARING TODAY'S ENGINEERING SCIENTISTS⁽¹⁾

ABSTRACT

According to a theory developed in the Harvard Business Review [Prahalad and Hamel (1990)], the survival and growth of a business enterprise in today's globalized economy depends, evidently, upon the strength of its "core competencies". A core competency is defined as a complex integration and harmonization of a stream of technologies and production skills within a firm. The set of its core competencies generates increasing returns for a successful company. By the dynamics of nonlinear Polya process, an economy with such companies has the following properties: multiple equilibria, nonergodicity, and the possibility of getting locked-in to an inferior equilibrium. In such a milieu the choice of technology by a company is not a simple matter of microeconomic optimization. It calls for appropriate initiatives at several levels -- company, industry, and government.

This is an age of rapid advancement in technology, fierce corporate competition, and tremendous uncertainty. Financial engineering -- the use of securities and other instruments to optimize risk -- has the potential not only to reduce the cost of existing activities, but also to make possible the development of new products, services, and markets. In today's economy, the technology and engineering function is even more complex and multifaceted than conventional or traditional forms of organization. Organizations are continuously trying to adapt to changes not only in technology but also in markets, regulations, financial innovations, changes in socioeconomic factors, and diverse work force (internally as well as externally).

The computer and telecommunication revolution places technocrats in direct and closer contact with internal workers, suppliers, competitors, and clients. Moreover, recent statistics show a significant shift of U.S. companies toward a more service-oriented global network; all these changing scenarios demand engineers with multiple roles of technology experts with efficient financial and management skills. However, technology education institutions have not focused on the need for educational training for our engineering or technology scientists to cope with their emerging role. Technology and finance are the two wheels of the bicycle, that is, the company. They are inter-related and complementary. Students of science, technology, and engineering would greatly benefit if these matters were adequately included in their curriculum. In a broader theme, this article is an attempt to project some thoughts on how educational background can be reorganized in order to better prepare today's engineering and technology scientists.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE AND RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Debates over the composition of the curriculum may seem contemporary but they have been waged throughout American history. Two classical works on the history of American Higher Education, Laurence R. Veysey's (1965) The Emergence of the American University and Frederick Rudolph's (1962) The American College and University, speak at length about the shifting emphasis of and ongoing debates over the curriculum in American higher education; that is, the shift from the colonial college founded in the British style with an emphasis on recitation and the classics to the influence of the German university with its emphasis on scientific inquiry and finally to the twentieth century university characterized by Clark Kerr (1963) as the multiversity, "a pluralistic society with multiple cultures."

Kliebard and Franklin correctly note that curriculum history cannot be isolated from a society's significant events and ideas and that curriculum history is an important element in social history; moreover, the curriculum does not reflect a unanimity of judgment but rather is likely to be "an unacknowledged detente among competing groups with the society." As changes in social conditions, legal structure, economic conditions, and technology occur, debates over the structure of curriculum can be expected to occur.

Snow (1959) identified two traditions or cultures which he characterized as that of the "scientist" and that of the "literary intellectual." According to him each culture shares common attitudes and a common way of thinking. Problems occur not only because the individuals in each culture think differently but because they are unable to communicate with or understand each other. The impassioned response of those in what Snow defines as the "literary intellectual" culture clearly demonstrates how strong the debate can be when the dominance of either tradition in the curriculum is threatened. In this case, the "literary intellectual" camp, led by F. R. Leavis (1972), responded bitterly to the idea of any further infusion of nonclassical subjects into the curriculum. He and his supporters were apparently threatened by the idea that science or technology be given a more prominent place in the general education and argued that none of the traditional education should be sacrificed for the sake of any of the sciences. This debate over "the two cultures" quickly became part of our language" [Dunathan (1988)].

Other scholars [Marcuse (1967)], agree with Leavis that we are more of "a technological society which subsumes culture, politics, and the economy," leading to "a one-dimensional society." More recently, Bloom (1987) and Bennett (1984 ) scorn the core approach and advocate a return to the classics. Bloom argues that universities are in a state of crisis largely because the humanities have lost their relevance.

Hence, in looking at the two cultures or traditions, we have two opposing views of human nature: fact versus feeling; the formal/theoretical versus the intuitive/tacit; reason versus rhetoric; the scientist ­ open minded and progressive ­ and the humanist caring little about understanding science and technology, elitist and remote [Thomas (1988)]. Their educational philosophies, therefore, are dichotomous: the culture of the scientist or tradition of the philosophist advocating intellectual freedom claiming that no knowledge can be certain and truth must be relentlessly pursued versus the culture of the humanist or the rhetorical tradition wishing to impart inherited wisdom, holding on to past traditions.

The debates over the two cultures leave us with an unanswered question: should the differences between the two traditions/cultures be reconciled; and if so, how? What emerges from the twentieth century debates over the curriculum are four philosophies: (1) that an emphasis be placed on the "rhetorial/intellectual [Leavis (1972)] (2) that an emphasis be placed on the scientific/technoloical [Snow (1959)], (3) that the two traditions be permitted to exist in tension--as the pendulum swings too far in one direction, it will be adjusted by the ongoing dynamic between the two [Kimball (1986)], and (4) that the two traditions/cultures exist in an integrated curriculum [Boyer, (1987)].

Boyer (1987) emphasizes that the undergraduate curriculum is fragmented--the core needs to be strengthened and the major fields enriched. He addresses the need for an integrated core that provides a general education program in which students not only gain the knowledge of a particular discipline but also are able to make connections across disciplines and apply that knowledge to real-world situations. The National Consortium for Technology in Business (1994) combined with ASEE and AACSB organized a professional dialogue on Business and Engineering Education and also emphasized the need for an integrated curriculum (linking business and engineering curricula in all engineering related programs). Exhibit I portrays the summary of the key recommendations.

The New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has taken initiatives that follow a Boyer-type approach where the two traditions/cultures exist in an integrated curriculum. Our school recognizes that as we approach the twenty-first century, the two traditions and cultures must work collaboratively because the nature of work is increasingly collaborative, requiring that individuals work in self-directed teams comprised of individuals from diverse backgrounds. Fortune magazine (1991) in a poll of major U. S. corporations found that they reported the most important skill for success in the work place to be the ability to work effectively in teams. We know that the problems facing society are not one-dimensional; they demand the attention of individuals who can at least understand and communicate with those whose expertise and mindset falls outside of their culture or tradition. Individuals, who, when in the workforce are able to work in interdisciplinary teams, communicate with each other, and understand a divergent viewpoint.

EXHIBIT I

Recommendations Issued by the First National Conference on Business and Engineering Education

Universities

1. Institute cross-disciplinary learning experiences in business and engineering at the undergraduate and graduate levels which support the long-term needs of industry and the university.

2. Create faculty performance systems which reward and encourage cross-disciplinary learning experiences in engineering and business.

3. Sponsor cross-disciplinary faculty development workshops (ASEE and AACSB).

Industry

1. Enter long-term partnerships with schools of business and engineering to help faculty and students learn current industrial practice and to gain university-developed knowledge.

2. Help engineering and business faculty develop cross-disciplinary curricula to meet immediate and evolving industrial needs.

3. Articulate specific educational needs at the local, regional, national, and international levels.

Government

1. Fund cross-disciplinary engineering and business projects and programs to encourage cooperation between industry and schools of engineering and business.

2. Assure new federal technology policy adequately supports university infrastructure so as to support industry and university interaction (National Science and Technology Council).

3. Form partnerships at the state, regional, and local levels to support engineering and business school interactions.

GLOBAL MARKET AND THE NEED FOR NEW SKILLS

Multifacet initiatives of engineering and manufacturing firms are crucial to survival in the global competitive market place. Moreover, technological advances, changing organization structures, and rising competition from newly industrialized countries [Porter (1986)] have affected the career directions and expectations of many engineers. Increased concentration on cost efficiency and product differentiation may be the key to the new direction for firms to regain or maintain competitive advantage [Porter (1985, 1990)]. Babcock and Lloyd (1992), however, note that engineers must link their technical practice with accounting and marketing personnel. Lake (1992) believes that engineers need to have communication, interpersonal relations, negotiation, and conflict resolution skills in addition to technical skills.

Most engineering education programs still center on knowledge of technology [Lake (1992)]. The reason for this is both traditional and the criteria established by the Accrediting Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET, the accrediting organization widely used in the U.S.) regards the "humanities and social sciences," which may only include traditional economics but not "subjects such as accounting, industrial management, personal administration, [or] engineering economy." Babcock and Lloyd (1992) stated that although ABET does not oppose management content in an undergraduate engineering program, management content has to compete with other courses and other program objectives for an unspecified 25 percent of the curriculum.

Hauck (1986) and Kirchhoff and Lin (1994) quoted ABET requirements and believe that the purpose of engineering training is limited to teaching students the application of theoretically based principles of the natural sciences to real problems. Hence, students are expected to focus on one segment of a technology specialty. It is quite natural that these students will, after graduation from schools, become engineers involved predominately with technical concerns. Exposure to the overall topic of business, its management, and its operation is difficult to affect within the ABET approved four year curriculum. A large number of ABET accredited engineering schools have adopted business management education requirements under an engineering management major [Sarchet (1986); Babcock and Lloyd (1992)]. Such programs, designed to link the gap between engineering and management knowledge, are typically housed in industrial engineering departments and include many courses that stress the technical aspects of management - production efficiency models, scheduling models, quality control, etc.-- all of which meet ABET's definition of applied technology, but treat subjects such as accounting, finance, marketing, personnel management, and business strategy only superficially, if at all.

The impact of changes in the global business environment upon engineering education has been fully appreciated by NJIT. First, at NJIT, students of conventional engineering programs may choose management as their minor field. In order to fulfill the requirement, these students are required to take twenty-one credits of managerial courses, which include the following seven courses: (1) Principles of Accounting or Accounting for Managerial Control; (2) Principles of Financial Management; (3) Management of Information Systems; (4) Principles of Management; (3) Principles of Marketing; (6) Management Science; and (7) Economics. If an engineering student takes another minor option in his/her undergraduate degree plan, he/she is still required to take at least one economics and one management course as a part of his/her social science and management requirements.

However, until recently, when engineering students enrolled in traditional economics and management courses with business and social science students, the overall emphasis of teaching was somewhat abstract and typically reflected either social issues or financial corporate environments, areas more suitable for social science and business related education respectively. Such courses, although comprehensive, failed to train engineering managers to adequately comprehend the practical management aspects of technology based companies.

An initiative is underway at the New Jersey Institute of Technology to emphasize the inter-relationship of the materials covered by the Principle of Management and Economics courses. Instead of offering engineering students traditional economics and management courses which are taken with business and social science students - where an appropriate emphasis is reflective of either a social or financial environment suitable for social science and business majors - the NJIT segregates its engineering students so that the inter-relationship of the materials covered by its Principles of Management and Economics courses may be emphasized. These two courses have been redesigned as a joint curriculum in order to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional curriculum and teaching in these areas.⁽²⁾ This effort is part of a grant program funded by the National Science Foundation.⁽³⁾

In determining the appropriate curriculum needed for engineers in the real world, this integrated course incorporated some of the key findings of Whittaker (1992) who conducted a questionnaire survey of engineers and engineering employers in industry and government regarding the appropriateness of curriculum topics. Of fifty-two potential topics, he found that oral communication; written skills; interpersonal skills; supervisory skill; industrial psychology; leadership theories; project management; interpersonal relations; time management; total quality management; and strategic planning were important criteria for successful careers. This initiative also includes some of the shortcomings in all categories mentioned above as well as topics in areas such as marketing, finance, management and business strategy usually ignored in engineering curriculum.

Several features of the integration of the Economics and Management courses are noticeable departures from the previous teaching of the two courses. First, a scenario type game is played the first week in an attempt to establish a baseline of student knowledge in the field of management and economics. The same game is played at the end of the first semester sequence of the two course and is planned to be replayed at the end of the second semester. A detailed analysis of the findings is given in the next section. Second, where most texts and courses in economics end with the area of International Economics, the integrated course begins with the Global issues. For example, the introduction of supply and demand theories are applied to international trade and foreign exchange rates and the significance of trade, as well as exchange rates, to managers is then demonstrated.

ASSESSMENT APPROACH OF INTEGRATED CURRICULA

In order to base an additional assessment of student achievement, regarding the new curriculum, other than classroom participation and testing, the following scenario was developed and presented to the students at the beginning of the first semester of the two-semester sequence of Economics and Management.

A manufacturer of plastic kitchen bowls and containers is not able to meet the market demand for its products; even though it has continually raised the price of its products. It is considering a major increase in production; either by a new plant in the United States or an overseas facility. The company has been very fortunate due to the fact that there have been many returns of its product because of defects; and yet, its sales still have increased. Despite its growing revenues, the company is in a precarious financial position due to its large debt-to-equity ratio. Also its Chief Financial Officer recently suffered a stroke and his position as yet remains unfilled. Fortunately, the company enjoys good relations with the employees and their union. A new three year contract with the union was just signed calling for wage increases equal to cost-of-living increases.

1. Discuss the various opportunities and problems facing the company (especially delineate the pertinent factors for each area under discussion).

2. What course of action would you employ for the company? Why? What are the bases for the decisions?

The students were primarily engineering students and all were either in the Freshman or Sophomore years. The students were divided into groups of four members each and worked on their respective analyses of the scenario and its attendant questions for a period of two weeks. During the last two weeks of the semester, the reports, which were collected, were given back to the groups. They were asked to make any changes, additions, deletions or revisions of any type that they might feel necessary in view of the semester's work.

The student's were excellent in capturing the key problems - poor quality control, absence of leadership on the financial side, high leverage, and lack of adequate supply - as well as the key strengths - good relationship with the employees and the union - of the company. In suggesting the course of actions for this company, the results were somewhat disappointing and yet enlightening. First, to the disappointment: the students readily recognized the problems; but their response to the problems was, at best, trivial. They all were appalled by the large debt-to-equity ratio and their solution to the problem was "that the large debt-to-equity ratio has to be reduced." Or the students were equally dismayed at the large number of defects in the production of the products. However, only around 20 percent of the students were able to apply the theoretical aspects of the course such as elasticity of demand, costs of production, and different models of international enterprise and management, to the scenario. Based on our own scoring on the answers as they relate to the appropriate theory, we found that on average the class had a score of 74 or C which was less than our enthusiastic expectation.

It may well be that the course content is too demanding (e.g. the one semester covers both macro and micro economics along with inputs from finance and management). The management course sequence is also very ambitious as to content. Students are taught to think as a multi-function manager. First, they are trained to evaluate projects from a financial analyst's perspective (cost-benefit analysis). They are taught also to think from the perspectives of a product manager and human resources manger in a global economy; employing management decision criteria during innovation and technical changes.

Each student is assigned a technology based industry as a case study at the beginning of the semester. As each segment of financial, marketing, and management theory is taught, students are asked to relate the issues to their respective companies through in class analysis, data gathering using SEC information available in the library, and in some cases through interviewing appropriate personnel. All students are required to analyze all aspects of the theory taught in the class to their projects, however, detailed attention is given to one particular area of the materials covered in class (e.g. product planning or product marketing).

The students are given several basic financial valuation problems as homework assignments. A case study (similar to a Harvard Case Study approach) that tests a student's ability to decide for a particular project whether management should lease or purchase machinery is also included. Both projects are due at the end of the semester. These assignments are required in addition to the course tests of mid-term and final examinations. The course is team taught and at the present time; the instructors are assessing their first experience with the integrated model.

ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING ENVIRONMENT AND TEACHING STRATEGIES

The second initiative [Bordman, Hasan, and Tedesco (1997)] applied Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) instruments using Kolb's Learning Style Inventory (LSI) model in order understand the impact of teaching and testing style on students' understanding and performance. We focused on student performance on four different types of exam questions: (1) multiple-choice theory (MCT), (2) multiple choice quantitative (MCQ), (3) open-ended theory (OET), and (4) open-ended quantitative (OEQ) and their relationship to four types of MBTI preferences. These four dimensions of preferences measure and reveal preferred modes of individuals toward their attention and orientation - introversion (I) and extroversion (E); perception and methods of acquiring information from the surroundings - sensing (S) versus intuition (N); decision making - thinking (T) and feeling (F); orientation toward the outer world - judgment (J) and perception (P). These four sets of preferences combine sixteen distinct personality types. An understanding of type preferences and their interactions serves as a core of "individual types." Given that the scales are a continuum, individuals within each of the sixteen types are likely to vary and at the same time share certain common characteristics.

We investigated and assessed personality preferences for forty-eight students enrolled in the first semester sequence (ECO-MGT I) and seventy students enrolled in the second semester sequence (ECO-MGT II) of our integrated course.⁽⁴⁾ Two courses, freshman design and technology communication, are prerequisites for the first sequence, ECO-MGMT I, which must be completed before students participate in the second sequence, ECO-MGMT II. It should be noted here that unlike traditional economics and management courses, our integrated course offers topics that involve economics, finance, and management with a strong manufacturing emphasis over a two-semester period in which the sequences are taught jointly by professors with respective expertise. MBTI was administered to students, along with a learning-style survey to assess what they value in terms of classroom instruction. The learning-styles survey followed surveys developed by qualified and certified professionals (Association of Psychological Type) to administer and evaluate the MBTI. Twenty-eight statements were developed to distinguish potential type differences with respect to learning styles [see Bordman, Hasan, and Tedesco (1997)]. Our goal was to investigate the importance (correlations) of teaching style, examination format, learning environment, and related variables on student preferences and success (performance). The investigation considered a number of other tests involving issues related to individual characteristics (sex, age), past performance (grade point average), previous training (prerequisites), and various examination formats. We hypothesized that the MBTI score plays a role in the types of questions in which students excel.⁽⁵⁾

The most prevalent groups were ISTJ, which account for 17.7% of the students, NTJ (15.3%), ESTP (14.4%), INTP (13.6%), INFP (11.9%),and ISFP (10.2%). It showed that engineering students were interested in decision making and thinking (T), judgment (J) process, information from surroundings (S). Distributions of students types revealed that an overwhelming number of sample students indicated a preference for introversion [(I) 57%] as their focus of attention [(as opposedto 43% preference for extroversion(E)], thinking [(T) 81%] as their primary decision making process [(as opposed to 19% preference for feeling (F)], judging [(J) 76%] as a means of orienting to their outer world [(as opposed to 24% preference for perceiving (P)], and sensing [(S) 79%] for acquiring information [(as opposed to 21% preference for intuition (N)].⁽⁶⁾ In all categories the percentages exceed those of the general population and therefore provide some indication of preferences of a technologically-based student body in the above categories compared with the general population.

We found strong evidence of training, exposure, and performance in prerequisite courses as strong determinants of performance in all types of test formats, we also observed that no particular types of test questions should be used to measure student performance, as students with different personalities excel in different types of questions. The evidence also indicated that sensing individuals perform better in quantitative questions, while intuitive individuals seem to have an advantage in theory questions.

We believe that such effort has a great significance for an interdisciplinary curriculum such as the ECO-MGT integrated course. It argues for innovative teaching and testing methods not only to extend MBTI sensing types but also to encourage more intuition and thinking as well as perception for the disciplines. Given the average personality types (introversion, thinking, judgment, and sensing preference) of engineering students, it is important to introduce issues and topics that encourage them to examine, analyze, and communicate not only the overview, patterns, and connection between materials but to approach situations in a creative and innovative way in order to grasp the complexities of the business environment. Students with these skills will not only do well in technical matters but will also succeed in the corporate world in an uncertain and changing global business environment.

CONCLUSION

The combining of two courses, each given by a separate unit of a university, is a bold and innovative advance in higher education. In this case, the basic economics course and the basic management course at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, have been integrated with a measure of success. Certain problems and challenges have arisen which will be met in the coming semesters by redesign of course content and instructional materials. The emphasis of the integrated courses has been broadened to include manufacturing and industrial concerns, understanding of financial and marketing issues as well as social and policy issues.

As discussed earlier, the choice of technology by a company is not a simple matter of microeconomic optimization alone. Academic institutions, in response to increasing complexities in technical and social problems, should put greater emphasis on integrated approaches to the curriculum without losing the "core competencies" of the technological profession. Moreover, strategic relationships with company, industry, and government should be sought to develop initiatives for educating well rounded professionals. While the assessment of interdisciplinary programs presents some unique problems, the incorporation of continuous assessment is a critical component to this type of integrated interdisciplinary course. We are hoping that in the forthcoming semesters, the integration will become somewhat of a natural process and will be extended to other aspects of the general education program for technical professionals. We would be remiss if acknowledgment was not made to the National Science Foundation for their support in this pioneering effort. The returns to this educational program will accrue for many years to come and contribute to the education of American engineers in a profound and positive manner.

APPENDIX I

ECONOMICS-MANAGEMENT I & II [SS201E-MGT390E]
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Economics & Management Topics For An Industrialized Society

Course Material

(Required) Economics, Samuelson, Paul and Nordhaus, R, Fifteenth Edition, McGraw Hill.
(Required) Management, Griffin, Ricky, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993.
(Required) Financial Analysis, Notes Distributed by the Professors.
(Optional) Study Guides of the text books mentioned above.

Additional Reading Assignments and Solutions will be kept in the Library's Reserve Desk for your convenience.

Course Objective

The 1980s and early 1990s represented an increasingly problematic decade for manufacturers. Evidence suggests that the environment in the next decades is becoming even more challenging. Increased competition, globalization, and changes in technology and labor force is putting massive pressure on manufacturers to become more agile, responsible and flexible. This requires quick and efficient readjustment in product design, innovation and customization, responsiveness in delivery system, and continuous improvement in costing and marketing strategies. Such an environment demands a more integrated approach in training manufacturers and managers of the future.

With this in mind, this economics-management course sequence is intended to assist in identifying economic and management factors requiring and understanding of basic concepts as well as the ability to construct and evaluate alternative scenarios. The course will emphasize both economic and non-economic ramifications of developing and implementing manufacturing decision makings. It will attempt to integrate basic principles of economics, finance, and management with the realities of the market place. The course sequence will put special emphasis on management practices in the area manufacturing. A broad course syllabus is given below.

Week No 1
Module No. 1:
Group Based Simulation Game of Economic and Management Decision Making (First Round)

Week No 2-4
Module No 2:
Manufacturing in a Global Economy

Management Considerations: The Corporate Decision; The Global Marketplace; Assessing the International Environment; Types International Ventures; and Types of International Ventures; Economic Considerations: International Trade; Foreign Exchange; Hedging Risk; Balance of Payments; and Market Share

Week No 5-6
Module No 3:
Planning a Product

The Planning Function; The Focus and Elements of Planning; Coordinating and Preparing for Change; Developing Performance Standards; Setting Priorities and Objectives; Strategic Planning; Relating the Strategic and Operational Plans.

Week No 7-10
Module No 4:
Producing and Marketing a Product

Demand and Supply Concepts; Elasticity; Costs of Production; Law of Diminishing Returns; Economies of Scale and Scope Issues; the Firm and its Revenue Under Different Markets; Competition; Monopoly; Oligopoly; Marketing Process; Product Classification and Positioning; Market Segmentation and Distribution Channels; Pricing Decisions; Consumer Satisfaction.

Week No 11-13
Module No 5:
Basic Understanding of Finance and Markets

Financial Statements, Taxes and Cash Flows; The Balance Sheet; The Income Statement Corporate and Personal Tax rates; Ratio Analysis; Solvency, Efficiency, Profitability and Market Value Measures; Benchmarking; Introduction to Money and Capital Markets; Stocks and Bonds Characteristics; Investment Banks; Interest Rates Risk; Future and Options Markets.

Week No 14-16
Module No 6:
Cost-Benefit Analysis

The Time Value of Money; Simple, Compound, and Effective Rate of Interest; Uniform Series; Cash Flow; Opportunity Cost; Depreciation; Cost Benefit Analysis for Multiple Alternatives; Alternative Comparison Format; Ranking Mutually Exclusive Projects; Break-Even Analysis; Capital Budgeting; Net Present Value; Payback Rule, Accounting Rate of Return; Internal rate of Return, Profitability Index; Making Capital Investment Decisions; Tax Considerations; Cost of Capital; Concepts of Risk-Return; Approach and Determination of Sensitivity Analysis; Uncertainty, Expected Value, and Risk Analysis.

Group Based Simulation Game of Economic and Management Decision Making (Second Round)

Week No 17-18
Module No 7:
Business, Economy and Role of Public Institutions

Alternative Economic Systems; Free Market Economy and Role of Public Sector; Circular Flow Model; Unemployment and Gross National Products; Keynesian Economics; Fiscal Policy; Government Actions: Taxation and Expenditures; Concepts of Social Goods and Services; Money, Banking System and Monetary Policy; Banking System; Federal Reserve and Organizational Culture;

Week No 21-23
Module No 9:
Managing the Manufacturing Firms in the 21st Century

Social and Ethical Responsibilities; Changing Expectations for Corporate Performance; Managerial Ethics; Ethics and Social Responsiveness; Consumer Protection; Product Safety; Environmental Protection; Actions Needed to Implement Social Responsibility; Managing Cultural Diversity; The Impact of Diversity on Organizations; Diversity as Competitive Advantage; Diversity as a Source of Conflict; Antitrust Laws and Regulations; Consolidation of Firms and Competitive Markets

Week No 24-25
Module No 10:
Role of Motivation and Leadership in Manufacturing Process

Motivating Employee Performance; The Importance of Employee Motivation in the Workplace; Content, Process and Reinforcement Perspectives on Motivation; Goal Setting Theory; Japanese Approach; Using Reward Systems to Motivate Performance; Leadership and the Nature of Leadership Behaviors; Situational Approaches to Leadership; New Perspectives on Leadership; Political Behavior in Organizations

Week No 27-28
Module No 11:
Manufacturing and Physical Environment

Management and Environment; The External and Internal Environment; Bi-Products, Manufacturing Process, and Pollution; Understanding the Basic Pollution Consequences of Production Process; Waste Management; Concepts of Multi Life Cycle Products. Cost-Benefit Analysis Incorporating Pollution; Corporate Image and Revisit of Strategic Planning

Week No 29-30
Module No. 12:
Group Based Simulation Game of Economic and Management Decision Making (Final Round).
Course Outcome Assessment and Overall Review

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Babcock, D.L. and Lloyd, B.E. 1992. "Educating Engineers to Manage Technology: An International Comparison," IEEE International Management Conference: 248-252.

Bordman, Sanford, Iftekhar Hasan, and Barbara Tedesco 1997. "An Assessment and Teaching Strategies of An Integrated Model For Management and Economics Instruction for Engineers," Proceedings of the American Society For Engineering Education, 1997.

Bennett, W. J. 1984. To Reclaim a Legacy: A Report on the Humanities in Higher Education, Washington, D.C.: National Endowment for the Humanities.

Bloom, A. 1987. The Closing of the American Mind, New York: Simon & Schuster.

Boyer, E. 1987. College: The Undergraduate Experience in America, New York: Harper & Row.

Dunathan, H. 1988. "Science as a Human Activity," Liberal Education.

Hauck, W.C. 1986. "C.A.S.H.:Engineering's Route to Top Management," First International Conference on Engineering Management: 94-99.

Lake, J.G. 1992. "A Program Design for Concurrent Engineering Education," IEEE International Engineering Management Conference: 71-76.

Leavis, F.R. 1972, "The Two Cultures? The Significance of Lord Snow," Nor Shall My Sword: Discourses on Pluralism, Compassion, and Social Hope, New York: Harper & Row.

Kerr, C. 1963. The Uses of the University, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Kirchhoff, B.A. and J. Lin. 1994. "Preparing Every Engineer for Management in the Twenty First Century," Paper Presented at the TIMS/ORSA Joint National Meeting, Boston, MA.

Kimball, B. 1986. Orators and Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education, New York: Teachers College Press.

Kliebard, H. M., and Franklin, B. M. "The Course of he Course of Study: History of Curriculum," Historical Inquiry in Education: American Educational Research Association, 138-157.

Marcuse, H. 1967. One Dimensional Man, Routledge & Kegan.

Morrison, P. 1986. "Making Managers for Engineers," Journal of Management in Engineering, 2(4): 259-264.

National Consortium for Technology in Business, 1994. "Engineering/Business Partnership: An Agenda for Action," Report from the First National Conference on Business and Engineering Education.

Poirot, J.W. 1987. "Current Trends in Engineering Training for Management in the United States," Journal of Management in Engineering, 3(2): 127-132.

Prahalad, C.K. and G. Hamel, 1990. "The Core Competence of the Corporation," Harvard Business Review, May-June: 122-136.

Porter, M.E. 1985. Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, New York: Free Press.

Porter, M.E. (ed.) 1986. Competition in Global Industries, Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Porter, M.E. 1990. The Competitive Advantage of Nations, New York: Free Press.

Rudolph, F. 1962. The American College and University, New York: A. Knopf.

Sarchet, B.R. 1986. "Skills for Effective Technology Management," First International Conference on Engineering Management: 200-205.

Snow, C. P. 1959. "The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution," Public Affairs, New York: Charles Scriber's Sons.

Thamhain, H.J. 1986. "Skills Requirements For Engineering Managers," First International Conference on Engineering Management: 218-223.

Thomas, K. 1988. "Gender and the Arts/Science Divide in Higher Education," Studies in Higher Education, 13(2): 123-137.

Tufano, P. 1996. "How Financial Engineering Can Advance Corporate Strategy," Harvard Business Review, January-February: 22-39.

Veysey, L. 1965. The Emergence of the American University, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Whittaker, J. 1992. "Designing an Engineering Management Program," IEEE International Engineering Management Conference: 150-152.

AUTHORS

Send all correspondence to Iftekhar Hasan, SOM-NJIT, University Heights, Newark, NJ 07102-1982; email: hasani@megahertz.njit.edu

SANFORD BORDMAN is a professor of economics in the College of Sciences and Liberal Arts of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Dr. Bordman's primary research interest is in the areas of technology assessment, cost-benefit analysis and environmental economics. He has had approximately twenty years of experience in industry as an electronic systems engineer. Dr. Bordman is currently engaged in developing products for CD-ROMS and the Internet.

IFTEKHAR HASAN is a professor of finance in the School of Management of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is also affiliated with the Graduate School of Rutgers University. His research interest is in the areas of financial institutions and applied corporate finance. Dr. Hasan has published numerous articles on finance, banking, and the thrift industry and is on the editorial board of a number of journals.

BARBARA TEDESCO is the associate dean at the School of Management of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Her administrative expertise as well as research interest is primarily in the area of assessment of curriculum, programs and accreditation of academic institutions. She has years of experience in the manufacturing industry. Her teaching interest is in the area of education management and comparative marketing.

¹     We thank Balakrishna Tirumalakanduri for research assistance. The authors are responsible for any remaining errors.

²     See Appendix I for a comprehensive analysis and detailed syllabus of the integrated course.

³     The National Science Foundation (NSF) recognizes the importance of integrating engineering and management knowledge. A manufacturing education program, which aims at preparing engineering students to design, manufacture and sell products, was proposed by NJIT, funded by NSF, and is now under development. The proposed program integrates courses related to product design, manufacturing systems engineering and management. Also, by offering seminar series conducted by industry experts and summer employment in manufacturing factories, this program tries to provide students with experiences from the real world. The Dean of the Engineering College leads this education program initiative with key inputs from professors, students, and administrators of all related disciplines at the Institute.

⁴ The course listings in the Institute Catalog lists the courses as ECON 201(E) and MGT 390 (E). E indicates that the course can only be taken by engineering and technology related majors in an integrated two-semester sequence.

⁵ Our basic regression format was
PERFORM = a₀+ b₁ SEX + b₂ AGE + b₃ GPA of Prerequisites + b₄Overall GPA + b₅ EI + b₆ SN + b₇ TF + b₈ JP [see Bordman, Hasan, and Tedesco (1997) for a detail analyses and resuts].

⁶ The general population is approximately 75% (E) and 25% (I), 75% (S) and 25% (I), 50% (T) and 50% (F), 55% (J) and 45% (P).

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