Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Internships in China: exploring contextual perspectives

Internships in China: exploring contextual perspectives Globally internships have become an increasingly pervasive means by which to enhance university learning and graduate employability. Whilst this practice has crossed national borders, the transferability of internships across national contexts has been largely assumed rather than empirically substantiated. The purpose of this paper is to explore interns’ and the host organisations’ perspectives of internships within the Chinese context.Design/methodology/approachQualitative data were gathered though a series of semi-structured interviews with interns and host organisations in China, results were interpreted via thematic analysis.FindingsOverall the study revealed both the interns’ and host organisations’ perspectives were consistent with those within other national contexts. Particularly, the findings highlighted the key role of individual interns’ dispositions, and internship supervision, as well as the conceptualization of internships as a career entry point. The study also identified a contextually specific variable of guanxi, as playing an influential role within the Chinese context.Research limitations/implicationsThe study was exploratory in nature, thus further research is required, to further substantiate the variables and relationships detected.Originality/valueThe study establishes the transferability of a number of theoretical premises to the Chinese internship context. The transportable nature of the internship experience suggests the appropriateness of a degree of standardisation of internship design across national contexts. Whilst, also suggesting cultural phenomenon such as guanxi should be considered when designing internships to achieve desired outcomes within a Chinese context. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Higher Education Skills and Work-based Learning Emerald Publishing

Internships in China: exploring contextual perspectives

Download PDF
13 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/internships-in-china-exploring-contextual-perspectives-Y6QmdYHZDz

References (77)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
© Emerald Publishing Limited
ISSN
2042-3896
DOI
10.1108/heswbl-05-2017-0032
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Globally internships have become an increasingly pervasive means by which to enhance university learning and graduate employability. Whilst this practice has crossed national borders, the transferability of internships across national contexts has been largely assumed rather than empirically substantiated. The purpose of this paper is to explore interns’ and the host organisations’ perspectives of internships within the Chinese context.Design/methodology/approachQualitative data were gathered though a series of semi-structured interviews with interns and host organisations in China, results were interpreted via thematic analysis.FindingsOverall the study revealed both the interns’ and host organisations’ perspectives were consistent with those within other national contexts. Particularly, the findings highlighted the key role of individual interns’ dispositions, and internship supervision, as well as the conceptualization of internships as a career entry point. The study also identified a contextually specific variable of guanxi, as playing an influential role within the Chinese context.Research limitations/implicationsThe study was exploratory in nature, thus further research is required, to further substantiate the variables and relationships detected.Originality/valueThe study establishes the transferability of a number of theoretical premises to the Chinese internship context. The transportable nature of the internship experience suggests the appropriateness of a degree of standardisation of internship design across national contexts. Whilst, also suggesting cultural phenomenon such as guanxi should be considered when designing internships to achieve desired outcomes within a Chinese context.

Journal

Higher Education Skills and Work-based Learning – Emerald Publishing

Published: Oct 17, 2018

Keywords: China; Guanxi; Internships; Work integrated learning

There are no references for this article.