The Enactment-Externalization Dialectic : Rationalization and the Persistence of Counter-Productive Technology Design Practices in Student Engineering

This paper explores why engineering students become and remain committed to counterproductive practices. Our findings suggest that during their tenure in engineering school, informants performed work practices that coincided with lay-stereotypes about what "good engineers" do. As informants performed these practices and teachers attempted to change them, they sought justifications that made those practices seem rational. This externalization process encouraged informants to perform these practices more frequently. We characterize the relationship between the enactment of norms and the externalization of work practices as a dialectical process that helps explain why engineering students could not conceive of changing their work. We draw on these findings to suggest implications for theory on occupational socialization and for the management of engineering work