Abstract
A Project Engineer manages technical or engineering projects. They work with stakeholders at all levels, with direct responsibility for budgeting, personnel, project planning and making sure the project is finished on time and within budget. Globally, women are underrepresented in the project engineering profession. Since South Africa’s democratic elections in 1994, various changes such as development of gender equality policies have been made in the country to enforce gender mainstreaming in corporate environments. These changes have since increased the number of women in the corporate world. Moreover, various companies have increased their participation in gender mainstreaming activities such as women empowerment and creating opportunities in scarce career fields related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
The main objective of this study was to investigate the perception of South African women in engineering regarding the project engineering profession. Three research questions were developed to conduct the study and identify the overall perspective of women in the project engineering profession about the sector. A qualitative research approach was applied to strengthen the credibility of the collected data and the research philosophy chosen for the study was exploratory as the ontology for the research.
To conduct this study, ten women within various sectors in the project engineering profession were selected according to specific criteria and interviewed with pre-set interview questionnaires. Primary data was collected by conducting online interviews with the participants, using the Microsoft Team’s virtual platform. The virtual interviews were recorded with the participants’ permission and field notes were taken during the sessions. Following the transcription of the interviews, the data was coded using manifest analysis. The data was critically reviewed and analysed to identify similarities in concepts with their properties. The concepts were identified mainly due to their consistency throughout the interview responses, and the fact that the participants used the same terms when outlining their stories. Principles of authenticity, credibility and validity were applied to ensure that the gathered data from the interviews was valuable and relevant to the study.
In terms of the findings, it was revealed that several factors influence women into pursuing engineering related studies. Most of the participants were not aware of engineering-related fields and were introduced to engineering due to the support and influence of family, peers,...