A plea for quality in internship programmes – evidence from the business and administration students’ experience

The career of business students is nowadays definitely influenced by their involvement in different internships and volunteering activities. The internship programmes help them understand the context of business organisations and decide what field of activity is most suitable for their professional life. However, sometimes internship programmes are not very well organised and influence in a negative manner students′ final perception of a certain domain. Our research identified and analysed the main factors that might influence the quality of an internship programme from students′ perspective. The quantitative analysis relies on a questionnaire based survey among over 450 students from one of the most prestigious universities in Romania in the field of economics and business administration. By running factor analysis, we identified five factors which mainly determine the quality of internships: Job arrangements, Mentorship and employability benefits, Learning content, Academic supervision, Bureaucracy and accessibility. Subsequently we measured through multiple regression the way the identified factors influence the quality of the internships. We consider that the results of the study are relevant not only for academics but also for students and business organisations that have the power and instruments to improve internship programmes and the entire experience for all stakeholders involved.