Conclusions
This study attempted to explore the influence of internships on the career intentions of tourism and hospitality management students by examining their expectations prior to the internship and their perceptions of the internship experience following its completion. Drawing from qualitative data, the study contributes important insights that advance understanding on the aspects pertaining to the efficient design and informed management of internship programmes. Study findings encapsulate the multi-faceted, complex nature of the career-related decision-making process of graduates and reveals that an interplay of factors influence the relationship between internships and career intentions. First, the study identifies individual factors such as study motives, information sources and commitment level as well as factors related to the organisation in which the internship takes place (e.g. organisational culture, management mentality, salary and efficacy of training) as proximal to the internship experience. While individual factors are important in shaping student expectations of the internship, their interaction with organisational factors impacts students’ post-internship perceptions. Second, findings highlight contextual dynamics pertaining to the industry (e.g. the stability of the economy, development stage) as regulating the conditions of the internship. Third, the study emphasises the mediating role of the socio-demographic factors of gender and nationality of interns on their career aspirations. Derived from the findings and serving as a potential methodological framework, a distal-proximal mediation model (Fig. 1) is developed, illustrating the relationship between the: (i) individual and organisational factors that are regarded as proximal influencers on interns’ experience, (ii) conditioning factors pertaining to the distal, contextual environment which regulate the experience and (iii) socio-demographic factors of interns which serve as mediators to the internship experience.
