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Despite calls from policy makers and educators, only a minority of students in the UK or worldwide engage, as part of their programme of study, in work placements, educational exchanges, volunteering or other immersive undertakings overseas (Purcell et al 2012; Jones 2011). Nevertheless, there is some suggestion in the wider literature on international internships and cooperative placements (i.e. students and recent graduates expatriating for their internships/placements), to support the view that students’ themselves believe that they may gain similar benefits as locals during internships, along with supplementary enhancements, such as heightened communication skills and second-language ability (Coll et al. 2003). Additionally, students returning from international internships may also believe they have also gained improved understanding of different workplace, local, national and regional cultures, and new insights into ways of working and professional practices (Pucillo, 1987; Lim, 2000; Beard et al., 2001; Wong & Coll, 2001; Coll 2004; Coll & Paku, 2006; Coll & Kalinis 2009). However, to what extent such enhancements may be valued by the young professionals themselves and by employers in later career stages is not adequately explored in the literature.

37 The experience international internships provide students might have the potential to produce great advantages once they enter the full-time job market (Clark, 2003; Feldman et al., 1999). The case for this claim might be stronger in those internships that expose students to international operations and allow them to work alongside experienced, successful managers and benefit from these managers’ expertise (Mello, 2006). Adler and Loughrin- Sacco (2003) assert that what they term as global managers (i.e. managers in business with an international focus and operations) rated highly student internships with overseas firms along with foreign language expertise, study abroad, and the knowledge of content areas. Furthermore, they concluded that “…internships provide the international experiential need of the global business community and the needs of students who want to succeed in that arena” (2003:15)

It has sometimes been positioned that international work and study experience will enhance a graduate’s career prospects (Cornelius, 2008; Cedercreutz and Cates, 2010; Gardner and Bartkus, 2014). One study of over 3000 International Business students over a 16-year period at the University of San Diego has claimed that international internships and study abroad programmes have a positive impact on the career development of graduates in the United States (Adler et al. 2005). A study complied on the behalf of the Rand Corporation, also in the United States, has argued that although hiring managers in international organisations ascribed little importance towards foreign language skills, they rated highly graduates with international internship or scholastic experience because such graduates might have acquired highly valued industry insights within a global context and cross-cultural experience (Bikson et al. 2003: 25). However it could be argued that such overseas work or study experience might also be indicative of other personal qualities sought after by hiring

38 managers such as the ability to learn, adaptability, independence, self-reliance and maturity (Archer & Davison 2008)

Some studies have made significant claims about the effect overseas internships might have upon the internee. For instance, Toncar and Cudmore (2000: 59) go so far as to claim that students from an American university were actually “changed” by the experience of being an intern at tourism business organisations in Oxford, England. Their study focuses primarily on the value of an international internship to the individual internee to the exclusion of possible negative impacts. Nonetheless the international internship experience they argue offers more the standard benefits of domestic internship such as the opportunity to ‘test drive a career’ and the chance to put theory into practice or the learning by doing experience (Calvo 2011). Additionally Toncar and Cudmore (2000: 59) argued that;

“…students who have participated in the program have reported or demonstrated that their experiences have had a substantial effect on them as individuals” (2000:59)

Toncar and Cudmore (ibid.) argue such developments as increased self-confidence, self- knowledge, changing perspective and awareness of ethnocentrism(s) might be of significance to potential employers. Indeed such an “eye stopper” as an extended period of overseas work experience on a graduate’s C.V. might provide a form of competitive advantage to the former internee in the marketplace for graduate employment (Toncar and Cudmore 2000, Cannon and Arnold 1998). Toncar and Cudmore (2000) make an interesting distinction between overseas internships and overseas educational exchanges, with the former offering what they see as more real-world experience than the presumably more cloistered environment offered by study abroad programmes. An interesting if somewhat curious theme in Toncar and Cudmore’s (2000) study is that the international internship offers more than just work

39 experience. Such internees are exposed to more than the world of work but also new corporate and local cultures in life changing ways. Similar “life changing” accounts were recorded in White et al.’s (2005) interpretations of American Marketing Management students’ experience of work placements in the UK. To what extent such comments are hyperbole or relate to longer lasting effects upon the person and upon career choice and development is unanswered. Root and Ngampornchai’s (2013) study of student’s international experiences indicated that experiences abroad have an obvious impact on students’ cognitive, affective, and behavioural skills. However they also concluded that they do not necessarily help to develop deeper levels of intercultural competence.

Button et al (2005) in a study of British nurses who underwent a period of overseas internship as part of their education concluded that the primary effect such overseas nursing experience had was upon personal development and transcultural adaptation. Similar conclusions were drawn from the study of Enskar et al. (2011) university lecturer exchange programmes and Lupi and Batey (2009) study of American trainee teachers working in Plymouth England. Similarly Sahin (2008: 1789) concluded that Turkish trainee teachers benefitted both “personally and professionally” from a teaching internship programme in the United States and that interns reported increased levels of “self-development” and “became culturally more effective people” with new “global perspectives”.

Coll et al. (2003) in an admittedly small scale study of Thai students’ overseas internship experience and non-Thai students’ experiences in Thailand found that although both groups reported difficulties with language and communication, both groups also described advantages from the international work experience which included improved self- confidence and perceived career enhancement. This would seem to confirm findings of Coll’s

40 (2000) study of student attitudes to international internships (therein termed cooperative education placements) in that students frequently reported problems with the mechanics of the placements, which resulted in periods of stress. Nevertheless the students’ interviewed valued the importance of exposure to other cultures and described personal enhancements in so called soft skills such as self-confidence and communication as well as cross-cultural awareness.

In an original turn in the literature on internships generally and international internships particularly Coll (2009) explored employers’ attitudes towards international internships within science and technology firms. In so doing Coll (ibid.) revealed that employers interviewed for the study engaged international internees for pragmatic reasons, in similar ways to the reasons they employed local internees. The students engaged by these employers possessed the skills required by their companies and were employed in similar capacities to local interns. This generally amounted to routine work, or specific projects. However, given the long induction times common in science and technology placements, the typically longer duration of international placements was also seen to be advantageous by employers. Employers also favoured the new perspectives international internees brought to the workplace. Coll’s (2009) most sticking conclusion was that employers testified that the greatest advantage of international internees “…was the enthusiasm the students brought to the workplace. The employers felt the fact that these students took the risk of traveling great distances provided strong indicators of their commitment and this was borne out in their ‘can do’ enthusiastic attitude in the work place” (Coll, 2009: 41). A noteworthy concluding remark in Coll’s study calls for further research to be undertaken outside of science and technology internships within other disciplines such as business and hospitality as: “These subjects likely

41 have different needs and an investigation into the success or otherwise of such international co-op exchange arrangements would be of value” (Coll, 2009: 42)

In an influential study, Feldman, Folks and Turnley (1999) found that there was a correlation between reportedly unsuccessful international business internships and insufficient mentoring. The study concluded that mentoring of international internees had a consistently positive impact on socialisation, on the amount of learning gained through internships and upon the likelihood of internees being offered and accepting permanent employment. Moreover, although age dissimilarity did not impact on results successful mentoring was identified as being more likely if the mentor and protégé were demographically more similar in terms of gender and nationality. It should be noted however that the study did not consider important possible demographical descriptors such as race or ethnicity, religion, social background or level of education. Nevertheless, Feldman, Folks and Turnley (1999) give important indications that inadequate mentoring, or in cases where the mentor and internee were demographically dissimilar, resulted in lower levels of learning about international business, less successful socialization to the work environment, worse prospects of job offers from sponsoring organizations, and fewer long-term career benefits from the internship than those in which appropriate mentoring and supervision were provided.

Research suggests well-structured mentorship within work based learning programmes has positive benefits (LaBonty & Stull 1993; Van Gyn & Ricks 1997; Fifolt & Searby 2010). Smith-Ruig (2014) explored the professional and psychosocial benefits reported by students in a mentoring programme as part of their work based learning. These

42 enhancements included increased confidence, improved work related knowledge and stronger career focus.

Busby and Gibson (2010) were perhaps the first to unearth empirical information surrounding notions of communication, culture, self, and context as key features relating to overseas internships or placements within the tourism and hospitality industries. Yet this concept remains underdeveloped. It could perhaps be posited that the experiential understanding gained by business and management students through participation in international workplace internship is in some ways similar to those that are mentioned within the literature on international work more generally. Although at this stage of their career such internees are most commonly placed in operational or junior supervisory roles within an organisation, their experience can be seen to mirror in some way that of other forms of expatriate labour.