2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Curricular Articulation of Leadership and Organizational Behavior in Professional Graduate Engineering Management Programs

Presented at Engineering Management Division (EMD) Technical Session

Graduate Engineering Management (EM) programs are intended to support engineers transitioning from individual technical contributors to leadership roles involving responsibility for people, projects, and complex socio-technical systems. Leadership and organizational behavior are, therefore, central components of EM curricula. Because these domains are also emphasized in Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs, questions arise regarding how leadership and organizational behavior are framed specifically for engineers and how EM programs distinguish engineering leadership from general managerial capability. This paper examines how leadership and organizational behavior are represented in graduate EM curricula focused on professional leadership development. Using an exploratory qualitative curriculum analysis, the study examines how leadership-related competencies are articulated at both the program and course levels, drawing on publicly available program descriptions and course catalog materials. Rather than evaluating instructional effectiveness or program quality, the analysis focuses on curricular representation and framing. Specifically, it examines whether leadership topics are presented as technical decision-making within engineering and socio-technical systems, implicitly embedded within technically oriented coursework, or framed more broadly using managerial or organizational constructs. Concepts from the Engineering Management Body of Knowledge (EMBoK) are used as an interpretive lens to inform analysis of technical leadership, systems integration, and socio-technical responsibility, without assessing formal alignment with any certification framework. The findings reveal recurring patterns in how leadership and organizational behavior are communicated across graduate EM curricula, including variation in the explicitness with which engineering-centered leadership is articulated. The results offer insight into how EM programs communicate leadership expectations to prospective students and highlight opportunities for clearer curricular differentiation within professional engineering education.

Authors

Dr. Raymond L. Smith III http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6535-3021 East Carolina University [biography]

Dr. Raymond L. Smith III, P.E., CPEM, PMP, is an Associate Professor of Engineering at East Carolina University, where he also serves as Director of Systems Engineering for the Center for Sustainable Energy and Environmental Engineering. He holds a Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from North Carolina State University. Prior to academia, he held engineering and leadership roles in industry, including enterprise transformation initiatives at Lenovo and IBM. His teaching and research interests include engineering management, decision analysis, systems modeling, and engineering education. Dr. Smith is an American Society for Engineering Management (ASEM) Fellow and is active in American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) leadership and scholarly activities.
Dr. Henry Lester http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1053-6418 University of Dayton [biography]

Dr. Henry D. Lester is an Associate Professor and Systems Engineering Program Director at the University of Dayton. He holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. in Civil Engineering (University of Alabama), an M.S. in Applied Statistics (University of Alabama), an M.S. in Operations Management (University of Arkansas), and a B.S. in Aeronautics (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University). He also holds certifications in Systems Engineering and Engineering Management. Dr. Lester is retired from the U.S. Army, where he held various technical, operational, and leadership positions. He is active in the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering (IISE), the American Society for Engineering Management (ASEM), the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), and the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME). His current professional interests include modeling, analysis, and optimization of complex operational systems and infrastructures susceptible to disruptions.

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