This book rests on three cultures: applied science, engineering, and management. While these plainly overlap to a degree, a person cannot move from success in one to success in another without considerable effort, dedication and talent. Clearly, an understanding of these cultural differences is essential to engineers whose career goal is to evolve into top-level managers. The first step in gaining such understanding is to admit that these three cultures are quite distinct. The applied science culture is typified by the engineering school; the engineering culture is typified by the company engineering design office; and the management culture is typified by the senior management team and the boardroom. The older one gets, the more one realizes the enormous importance of "culture" to almost every important human issue, and the topic of engineers becoming managers is certainly no exception. The culture of a group is the set of all common traits, responses, values, beliefs, priorities, attitudes and behaviors which characterize that group. A group's culture is usually not codified but is passed on, from older group members to younger ones by a thousand subtle messages, most being nonverbal. Part I of This BookHaving briefly established in Chapter 1 the inseparability of engineering and management, we then look at the students who enter an engineering school intending to graduate and become employed as young engineers. Although they go to their first classes reasonably expecting that they are now on course to become engineers, as described in Chapter 2 what they usually find on offer, is the culture of applied science. Part I is intended for engineering students and should be read as early as possible in engineering school. Chapter 3 argues that it is the duty of an engineering school to acquaint all of its students not just with careers in civil, chemical and electrical engineering, etc., but about careers in engineering management as well-and to devote an appropriate fraction of its financial and human resources to discharge this duty. Chapter 4 shows, in abridged form, the entire journey from the most abstract of mathematics to the realities of commerce. Also featured in Part I of this book are two subjects (discussed in Chapters 5 and 6) that are crucial for a future in management, yet are rarely considered in a typical undergraduate applied science education: marketing and office politics. Part II of This BookHere, the target readers are functioning engineers in various nonacademic organizations. Part II of this book is intended for young practicing engineers and should be read as early as possible after graduation. One must decide what the future options and opportunities are, what one's strengths and weaknesses are, and what one most enjoys doing-not just over the next year or two, but over the remainder of one's career. Chapter 7 considers risk management. No business can be successful without planning, and planning requires making assumptions about the future. To achieve the desired (well-considered, well-calculated) rewards requires a commitment to the associated (well-considered, well-calculated) risks. The second area examined (Chapter 8) is accountancy. Anyone who does not understand the relation between his activities and the financial needs of the business (or considers this relationship to be someone else's problem) is in a self-limiting career. The third area (Chapter 9) should be a source of excitement for engineers. Their backgrounds and aptitudes prepare them especially well for innovation. The relationship of R&D to innovation and the roles of incubators, technology clusters and university laboratories are also discussed. Finally, in Chapter 10, we examine the important concept of intellectual capital. Knowledge-based companies-the ones that are heavily dependent on what their employees know, how these employees share this knowledge with other employees in the company, and how all this knowledge g

If the prospect of being a professor seems interesting, this book is for you. If you have already committed yourself to an academic career, then find out what options are available to you now, before time runs out This book is a primer on how to succeed in this challenging - yet rewarding - vocation. The following target audiences will discover the fascinating world inhabited by professors, and for those already in the profession, a multitude of career options that are available to you: graduates, contingency faculty, new tenure-track professors, newly tenured professors, and mature tenured professors. This book first describes the range of academic careers, their opportunities and pitfalls, including the concept of tenure, the long sought goal of most aspiring academics. One of the benefits to an undergraduate reader is an opportunity to get inside the world of the academic and examine the many different career paths that are available, once the tenure hurdle is overcome. This book also includes much advice from detailed interviews with other academics who have achieved 'stardom' as leaders, scholars, researchers, entrepreneurs and teachers. Among our interviewees are the presidents of four leading universities (two American, two Canadian). Importantly, the authors and most of the interviewees have, in addition to their academic achievements, substantial experience in the public sector and private business; they can see from the outside as well as from the inside. Still, not all of such pre-tenure counsel has the professor as client. Much of the pre-tenure advice, on the contrary, is based instead on what the university wants. While not suggesting that an employee who wishes to pursue a successful career should aim to do the opposite of what his or her employer prefers, it would equally be folly to suggest that the employer's interests and the employee's interests are identical In contrast with the pre-tenurial context, what one should do post-tenure is more mysterious. It is less written about (from the professor's viewpoint); less discussed; less codified; more based on cryptic insinuations, private discussions with mentors, and just plain guesswork - hardly a solid framework within which to plan a successful career. There is much more to consider, as we shall see. Thus this book then assists with the post-tenure career period - hardly a brief interlude, more like virtually all one's life as an academic and most of one's life on Earth. For academics to treat their post-tenure professional life as a black art is simply not acceptable. We see the achievement of tenure as the grand (creaking?) opening of very large, very heavy doors, revealing an exciting post-tenure world beyond. As for the "black art," effectively equivalent to ignorance, we hope to shed light on the many exciting possibilities that can bloom in the post-tenure world; to broaden the options seriously available; and to suggest strategies for choosing and pursuing these options. The authors recognize that in most North American universities there exists a two-tier academic system: those on a path to tenure, and those hired on contingency contracts (non-tenure stream). It is important to the graduate student contemplating an academic career to realize that, unlike his professors who are close to retirement, tenure stream appointments are no longer the norm and are becoming less frequent. However, this book will still be of value to contingency faculty, virtually all of whom aspire to tenure stream appointments. The authors' objectives for this book include the following: Help readers gain a better insight into the world of academe; Define issues relevant to choosing an academic career and provide guidance in reflecting on these issues; Assist other professors to broaden their perspectives; and, most of all, Help our fellow academics to plan their careers.

This book rests on three cultures: applied science, engineering, and management. While these plainly overlap to a degree, a person cannot move from success in one to success in another without considerable effort, dedication and talent. Clearly, an understanding of these cultural differences is essential to engineers whose career goal is to evolve into top-level managers. The first step in gaining such understanding is to admit that these three cultures are quite distinct. The applied science culture is typified by the engineering school; the engineering culture is typified by the company engineering design office; and the management culture is typified by the senior management team and the boardroom. The older one gets, the more one realizes the enormous importance of "culture" to almost every important human issue, and the topic of engineers becoming managers is certainly no exception. The culture of a group is the set of all common traits, responses, values, beliefs, priorities, attitudes and behaviors which characterize that group. A group's culture is usually not codified but is passed on, from older group members to younger ones by a thousand subtle messages, most being nonverbal. Part I of This Book Having briefly established in Chapter 1 the inseparability of engineering and management, we then look at the students who enter an engineering school intending to graduate and become employed as young engineers. Although they go to their first classes reasonably expecting that they are now on course to become engineers, as described in Chapter 2 what they usually find on offer, is the culture of applied science. Part I is intended for engineering students and should be read as early as possible in engineering school. Chapter 3 argues that it is the duty of an engineering school to acquaint all of its students not just with careers in civil, chemical and electrical engineering, etc., but about careers in engineering management as well-and to devote an appropriate fraction of its financial and human resources to discharge this duty. Chapter 4 shows, in abridged form, the entire journey from the most abstract of mathematics to the realities of commerce. Also featured in Part I of this book are two subjects (discussed in Chapters 5 and 6) that are crucial for a future in management, yet are rarely considered in a typical undergraduate applied science education: marketing and office politics. Part II of This Book Here, the target readers are functioning engineers in various nonacademic organizations. Part II of this book is intended for young practicing engineers and should be read as early as possible after graduation. One must decide what the future options and opportunities are, what one's strengths and weaknesses are, and what one most enjoys doing-not just over the next year or two, but over the remainder of one's career. Chapter 7 considers risk management. No business can be successful without planning, and planning requires making assumptions about the future. To achieve the desired (well-considered, well-calculated) rewards requires a commitment to the associated (well-considered, well-calculated) risks. The second area examined (Chapter 8) is accountancy. Anyone who does not understand the relation between his activities and the financial needs of the business (or considers this relationship to be someone else's problem) is in a self-limiting career. The third area (Chapter 9) should be a source of excitement for engineers. Their backgrounds and aptitudes prepare them especially well for innovation. The relationship of R&D to innovation and the roles of incubators, technology clusters and university laboratories are also discussed. Finally, in Chapter 10, we examine the important concept of intellectual capital. Knowledge-based companies-the ones that are heavily dependent on what their employees know, how these employees share this knowledge with other employees in the company, and how all this knowledge g

From its roots in classical mechanics and reliance on stability theory to the evolution of practical stabilization ideas, this volume covers environmental torques encountered in space; energy dissipation; motion equations for four archetypical systems; orientation parameters; illustrations of key concepts with on-orbit flight data; and typical engineering hardware. 1986 edition.