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Engineering Education as Preparation for Management: A Study of M.I.T. Alumni1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

John B. Rae
John B. Rae
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of History at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Abstract

The processes whereby technical know-how is translated into business decisions are not widely understood; neither is there much definitive information about the role the engineer historically has played in administration. The data upon which this paper is based suggests that management of modern enterprise has been increasingly dependent upon graduates of engineering schools. The facts and implications are of interest not only to historians, but to businessmen and educators.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , March 1955 , pp. 64 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1955

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References

2 The various states which consciously chose to put the greater part of their effort into canals rather than railroads during the internal improvement boom of the 1830's may be cited as an example. Valuable as the canals were, the states certainly gained less than they would have if they had built railroads instead. Cf. Rae, J. B., “Federal Land Grants in Aid of Canals,” Journal of Economic History, IV, no. 2 (Nov., 1944), 171Google Scholar.

3 For an interesting discussion of this phenomenon see Sawyer, John E., “Entrepreneurial Error and Economic Growth,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, IV, no. 4 (May, 1952), 199–204Google Scholar and Aitken, Hugh G. J., The Welland Canal Company (Cambridge, 1954), pp. 30, 41–42Google Scholar.

4 American Society of Civil Engineers, Transactions, I (1872), 149Google Scholar.

5 Burr, William H., “The Ideal Engineering Education,” Engineering Education, I (1894), 20–21Google Scholar.

6 Siebert, G., “The Commercial Management of Engineering Works,” The Engineering Magazine, XXII (Feb., 1902), 655Google Scholar.

7 M.I.T. Bulletin, Vol. 45, no. 3 (March, 1910)Google Scholar.

8 The results of this questionnaire were made available through the courtesy of Mrs. Evelyn B. Yates of the M.I.T. Alumni Placement Office.

9 Simmons, Paul A., “An Investigation of Employment Patterns Being Established by M.I.T. Alumni,” Thesis for Degree of Master of Science, Department of Business and Engineering Administration, M.I.T., 1950Google Scholar. This study concentrates on graduates of four selected professional courses, but it also has some general figures.

10 “Active” is used here to exclude the retired group. Since the surveys do not indicate the previous occupations of those listed as retired, it seems wiser to omit them from calculation.

11 The “executive” group included those who reported themselves under one of the following titles: chairman of the board, president, vice-president, director, general manager, business manager, secretary, owner, proprietor, comptroller, treasurer, assistant treasurer, and executive assistant.

12 Simmons, loc. cit., p. 45. The increase is actually greater, since this thesis sets up a separate category of Finance and Accounting, which includes the comptrollers and treasurers.

13 A good example is provided by the contrast in the methods employed by William C. Durant and Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., in the management of General Motors, which is lucidly presented in Douglass, Paul F., Six Upon the World (Boston, 1954), 142–3Google Scholar.

14 The fact that the course in Business and Engineering Administration was then added to the M.I.T. curriculum after 1910 accounts for some of this increase but not by any means all of it. In 1947 the proportion of Course XV graduates in this field was not appreciably greater than the others; Cf. Simmons, loc. cit., pp. 45, 68.

15 Society of Automotive Engineers, Bulletin, I (1911), 3Google Scholar.

16 Class of 1884, M.I.T., Twenty-fifth Anniversary Book (Boston, 1909Google Scholar); Class of 1893, M.I.T., Thirtieth Anniversary Report (Boston, 1924)Google Scholar.

17 The class secretary claimed 42 “presidents or managers of important industrial enterprises” (Class of 1884, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Book, p. 306), but this computation must have been made in a spirit of reunion exuberance or else on the basis of information not included in the class book.

18 Class of 1893, Thirtieth Anniversary Report, p. 99.

19 Ibid., pp. 204-5.

20 Ibid., pp. 220-1.

21 Ibid., pp. 150-2.

22 Ibid., p. 80.

23 Ibid., p. 246.

24 Ibid., p. 151.

25 Ibid., p. 213.

26 Ibid., pp. 244-5.

27 The author has been studying this problem and some of his initial findings are presented in “The Engineer as Business Man in American Industry: A Preliminary Analysis,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History VII, no. 2 (Dec, 1954), 94–104Google Scholar.