Abstract:
Many innovative-minded engineers have stepped towards the business domain as entrepreneurs in the
international context and in the Sri Lankan context. Most entrepreneurial engineers have exploited
technology-related business opportunities and succeeded in their entrepreneurial journey while
contributing immensely to the economic development of the country. Although these engineers play
the role of a business leader, they are professionally qualified engineers. Hence, they cannot neglect
Engineering Ethics and perform as pure business managers in their entrepreneurial firms. The Code
of Engineering Ethics applicable to Sri Lanka advises local engineers to actively assist and encourage
the subordinate engineers to advance knowledge and experience. Therefore, Sri Lankan
entrepreneurial engineers have an ethical responsibility to support the professional development of
subordinate engineers. Both fields of entrepreneurship and ethics of engineers lack systematic studies
in Sri Lanka. Thus, the authors were involved in an ongoing grounded theory-based qualitative study
on entrepreneurial engineers' ethical practices in Sri Lanka. Based on the findings of that study, this
paper investigates the strategies followed by Sri Lankan owner/manager entrepreneurial engineers on
the professional development of their subordinate engineers. A purposively and theoretically selected
sample of twelve entrepreneurial engineers was interviewed face to face to collect data. Interviews
were voice recorded and transcribed verbatim. Interview transcripts were analyzed employing
grounded theory techniques to achieve this study's objective with the NVivo software's support. The
study reveals that Engineering Ethics' influence has compelled entrepreneurial engineers to follow
various employee development strategies. As highlighted in their interviews, training, teaching,
coaching & mentoring are the major categories of procedures followed by entrepreneurial engineers
in Sri Lanka. This study's findings can be considered as guidance for emerging and future
entrepreneurial engineers to create a mutually beneficial sustainable work environment for
entrepreneurial engineers and their employees while achieving business success.
