Managing Employee Discipline: An Entrepreneurial Engineer Perspective in Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka’s emerging economy, entrepreneurial engineers who lead their own enterprises face the dual challenge of technical innovation and workforce management. This study investigates how these entrepreneurial engineers maintain discipline within their organizations, an often-overlooked aspect of engineering entrepreneurship. Based on 22 in-depth interviews with founders and leaders of engineering-based businesses across Sri Lanka, the research employs an inductive thematic analysis to uncover key strategies, obstacles, and cultural dynamics that shape disciplinary practices in privately run firms. The five themes that emerged as self-discipline, workforce attitude challenges, ethical conduct, external institutional barriers, and practical strategies reflect a complex interplay between internal leadership behaviors and the broader socio-cultural and institutional environment in which these businesses operate. This study highlights how entrepreneurial engineers, as business owners, act as both technical leaders and organizational architects, shaping discipline not through rigid hierarchies but through adaptive, ethically anchored leadership. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of engineering entrepreneurship in the Global South and offer practical implications for those leading technical enterprises in culturally complex and resource-constrained settings.