PAPER REPRISE: Engineering Students Appear Sensitive to Perceived Organizational Priorities in Experiment on Safety vs. Profit

In this study published in 2023 (https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IMECE/proceedings/IMECE2022/86717/V009T14A037/1157514), we ran an experiment with 141 undergraduate engineering students and asked them to allocate a limited budget on a transportation infrastructure project between competing objectives of safety and profitability. It was possible to meet minimum requirements in both objectives, but not the ultimate goals for both objectives with the available budget, so we got to see where they put their “extra” money. We primed different groups with different management priorities, and participants didn’t always follow the stated priming (to maximize safety or profitability or achieve balance), but did report following their perception of the “manager’s” priorities (rather than claiming they relied on their own judgment). We’re thinking about revising this experiment and recruiting a larger sample size to see if we may be able to learn more.