Communication as part of the engineering skills set

Abstract

Engineering graduates are facing changing requirements regarding their competencies, as interdisciplinarity and globalization have transformed engineering communities into collaboration arenas extending beyond uniform national, cultural, contextual and disciplinary settings and structures. Engineers no longer manage their daily tasks with plain substance expertise; instead they must be adept at communication, collaboration, networking, feedback provision and reception, teamwork, lifelong learning, and cultural understanding. This calls for a concomitant change in university curricula, challenging the current university system to supply graduates that possess working life skills relevant in today's work communities. However, before committing to such a reform, universities need to understand the significance and strategic role of communication in engineering communities. This article attempts to establish the potential offered by corporate communications by first introducing factors undermining the role and reputation of communication, and further on, by slicing the communication function into activities related to strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and working culture, to examine how communication supports organizational operations.