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As the 4th industrial revolution (4IR) unfolds, there is an increasing awareness that its implications for workforce transformation and shifts in workforce demand will profoundly impact the future of work. Specifically, the paper seeks to answer the following research questions: i) how does Students’ Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) equip young people for the real world of work, especially in the era of the third industrial revolution?; ii) does SIWES support the exposure of young people to the world of digitalization?; and iii) what are the effects of the SIWES exposure on the employability of young people? This paper aims to evaluate the University Internship system and preparation of young people for the world of work in the 4th industrial revolution.

This paper used a mixed method to unravel the objectives of this study, that is, quantitative and qualitative methods. For the former, structured questionnaires were used to elicit a response from 249 young people drawn from tertiary institutions across Lagos State, Nigeria. The latter used an in-depth interview method conducted among 45 respondents (25 employers of labor and 20 lecturers).

The findings reveal that: SIWES contributes meaningfully to the advancement of knowledge and capacity building among young people; SIWES exposes young people to the world of digitalization, depending on the organization where the internship takes place; and SIWES pays little attention to financial rewards and more attention to the acquisition of skills that are relevant to the world of work. The practical and policy implications of the findings are critically discussed.

This paper critically evaluates the SIWES policy amidst the growing threats of widening skills gap, greater inequality and broader polarization.

The study aims to examine the moderating influence of perceived co-worker support in the nexus between compulsory citizenship behaviour, job involvement and social loafing amongst university interns.

Four hundred and sixty-two) respondents took part in the study by completing a self-reported questionnaire distributed via online WhatsApp platform. The respondents were selected using multistage sampling technique. The data were processed and analysed using IBM SPSS version 24 and PLS-SEM, respectively.

Results reveal interns’ experience of compulsory citizenship behaviour positively influences their social loafing and negatively influences their job involvement. Furthermore, the support received from co-workers’ reduces the negative influence of compulsory citizenship behaviour on interns’ (1) social loafing and (2) job involvement.

The study’s main limitations have been identified as the type of organisation in which the internship was completed and the number of years of internship experience. Future research may seek to address this problem by obtaining data from a cohort that is categorised based on the nature of the organisation and duration of the internship.

Perceived co-worker support has been found to reduce the negative effects of interns’ compulsory citizenship behaviour on their job outcomes. It is recommended that organisations establish a supportive work environment to assist interns. This can be achieved through various means, such as engaging in team-building activities and assigning mentors, among other strategies.

One of the first to have examined a model linking compulsory citizenship behaviour, job involvement, social loafing and perceived co-worker support amongst interns in a higher education environment.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the perspective of youth employees about owner manager businesses. The owner-manager business (a one-man business) is the most common in Lagos. Hence, an inquiry into their management style and how it impacts youth employees within the context of decent work is important to explore.

The study used the convenience sample technique to obtain data from 382 owner-managers and youth employees who work in owner-managed businesses across various sectors. They were administered a questionnaire with carefully structured questions, with an 81% return rate. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) technique was used to identify the prominent parameters, and the hypothesis tested and validated accordingly.

The study identified three prominent factors that youth consider when working for an owner-manager business, i.e. the workplace factor, geographical factors and employee benefit. Consequently, issues regarding sustainable employment, conducive working conditions, job security and pension are paramount in the youths' view. Many owner-managers do not respect labour laws, and job security is low in owner-managed businesses; hence, they experience high turnover as most youth work in one-man businesses to gain experience.

The owner-manager business is the most predominant in the country and yet is under-researched. Furthermore, the perception of youth employees regarding owner-manager businesses provides a better understanding of performance and expected satisfactory outcome required from youth employees and how they can be met through proper channelling of their energies to the right tasks.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss the way internships are currently evaluated in Campania Universities by host institutions.

The author collected and described questionnaires used by the universities of the Regional Observatory of Campania University System. These questionnaires are given by the host institutions to interns to fill out, and they evaluate skills growth in terms of initial and final assessment. Data related to these questionnaires are not publicly available, therefore the main data source comes from 732 post-internship questionnaires collected by the University of Suor Orsola Benincasa in 2013-2014.

Out of the 732 participants considered, 65 per cent rated excellent for motivation and interest, 55 per cent were rated excellent for the responsibility demonstrated, but only 37 per cent were rated excellent for the level of work autonomy achieved: a signal of the need to better prepare students for internships. Cross-technical and professional skills, which increase of +37 and +32 per cent, suggest that the experience has a very positive value. Regarding the experience outcome, the author detected a positive indicator: in 6 per cent of cases, an early employment occurred.

It has only been possible to analyze the questionnaires from one of the Campania universities. The results encourage us to explore further, extending instruments and research methods at a national level, too.

The author built a research database form to compare current questionnaires in Campania. The author collected internship evaluation data from Suor Orsola University to propose a common questionnaire among Campania Universities. By sharing the findings, other universities, national and international, could benefit from the results.

This paper aims to present key characteristics of educational design briefs for the circular economy (CE) through the analysis of 11 design briefs focussing on real-life challenges related to sustainability and the CE, developed with collaborating industry partners for four consecutive circular design internships conducted in Ireland, Catalunya, The Netherlands and Sweden.

These four internships were conducted between September 2017 and June 2019 and each internship lasted three to four months. The supervisors for each internship collaborated with local industry partners genuinely interested in adopting sustainable business practices to develop design briefs focussing on real-life challenges they face. The briefs for each internship were developed further according to the feedback of the interns, industry partners and supervisors of previous internships.

Five steps of brief making for circular design were identified as reviewing the existing resources, emphasizing the importance of systems thinking, emphasizing the importance of collaboration for the CE, focussing on circularity and communicating expectations. The paper outlines how design briefs changed throughout the consecutive internships according to the different curricula and the characteristics of an educational circular design brief.

For design educators and researchers, the value of this paper lies in presenting the steps for the brief making of educational circular design projects. Additionally, the characteristics of circular design briefs are outlined, discussing their focus and content to act as a guide for design educators.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the strategies and an effective model for creating and implementing a sustainability internship program at a university campus.

This study assessed Western Michigan University’s sustainability program’s interns’ gain of environmental knowledge on sustainability topics via pre- and post-test assessments. A sample of 50 interns between fall 2016 and spring 2019 comprising six cohorts participated in this study. Data were analyzed using statistical package for social sciences to calculate descriptive statistics and sign tests.

The sign tests of the accumulative internship pre- and post-test assessment scores significantly increased for all 14 sustainability knowledge dimensions.

The pre- and post-test assessments of the internship program are unable to track and predict the long-term behavior changes of the interns after the completion of the program. Therefore, a future longitudinal study is needed.

This sustainability internship program’s content and experiential learning model has been proven to be effective in increasing interns’ knowledge of sustainability issues and creating sustainability stewards. Institutions and universities should consider creating their own sustainability internship program based on Western Michigan University's program using pre- and post-test assessments as a method of evaluation.

The internship programs’ main strength is that it offers students from all academic backgrounds an opportunity to dig deep into sustainability issues, build new social networks, gain knowledge, develop leadership skills, become sustainability stewards and immediately apply what they have learned on campus and in their local community. On-campus internships are unique learning opportunities worthy of study and refinement.

This research paper is unique because it analyzes the combined pre- and post-test scores of six cohorts of interns’ across multiple knowledge dimensions of sustainability. This study empirically shows that the combined interns’ sustainability knowledge across all dimensions significantly increased from the pre- to post-test over the semester-long program.

The perspectives of industry instructors from a case enterprise were adopted to analyze various contexts of internship implementation and to examine feasible strategies for incorporating internships in the human resource development process.

A Taiwanese enterprise stationed in China was selected for case study. This study focused on the 2019 summer internship program. Interviews were conducted with 23 industry instructors.

(1) Units should effectively employ interns by guiding them to learn by doing tasks. (2) Provide training and assign personal industry instructors to guide interns in learning by doing, thereby establishing workplace relationships in advance. (3) High-level leaders and senior managers must pay close attention to internship results and inspire industry instructors and interns to perform internship tasks. (4) Managers of internship units must participate in interviews to select potential employees that satisfy unit requirements. (5) Opportunities for university teachers to interact with enterprises and recommend interested students who learn knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics (KSAOs) that fulfill enterprise requirements should be increased.

Enterprises must systematically plan internship tasks, recruitment and selection, as well as practices and reports if they wish to employ interns as potential human resource.

This study used the practical perspectives of industry instructors to establish the contexts and strategies of intern training for human resource development. The results of this study are expected to provide a reference for enterprises in planning internship workplaces and increase their willingness to employ interns.

This paper aims to determine whether high school students can become agents of change in their local communities by participating in a formal internship program implemented through a partnership between academia (high schools and universities), nonprofit organizations and key community stakeholders.

Pre- and post-assessments, activity journals and on-line interviews are used to measure the impact of internships on high school students’ sustainability leadership, using a train-the-trainer intervention led by university interns. A conceptual problem-solving framework is proposed and empirically tested to explore the linkages between complex problem constellations, sustainability transition strategies and sustainability visions.

The five core leadership competencies (systems thinking, strategic, anticipatory, normative and interpersonal) may not be as uniquely discrete as suggested in the literature. An effective learning experience depends on students’ developing competence in their ability to implement a strategic intervention, which is better acquired through hands-on experience rather than a classroom setting.

Students need experiential learning outside of the classroom to make sustainability come alive as a viable option for their communities.

The principles of social responsivity, engagement, experiential learning, capacity-building and entrepreneurialism can be executed by transforming the campus into a learning lab, which includes the local community.

This study empirically demonstrates that students need involvement in strategic interventions to imagine and conceptualize sustainability visions. It also shows how academia can help fulfill the United Nations sustainable development goals.

The purpose of this paper is to survey the current status of internship programs for Management undergraduate students and to introduce a well‐established internship program.

A web page analysis was conducted on 473 institutions that have AACSB (the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) accreditation in the USA. The list of these institutions is from the AACSB web site (member school list) as of July 2010. A description of a well‐established internship program is provided. The 15 item questionnaire is developed to get the students feedback on the required internship course described in this paper. Based on that survey and web search findings, suggestions for internship course improvement are provided.

Most schools (96.5 per cent) offer some type of internship course but only a few schools (4.5 per cent) require students take an internship course. The pass/no pass grading system was preferred by a majority of universities (85 per cent). Students need to work an average of 169 hours for three credit internship courses. The most popular prerequisites are: GPA of 2.5 or higher; permission from an advisor or coordinator (62.5 per cent); and various other restrictions such as school minimum accumulated credit hours (22.5 per cent) and specific courses (33 per cent). The well‐established program introduced has dedicated advisors to supervise the required internship courses.

Internship program advisors/coordinators can assess the compatibility of their internship program with the introduced program. In addition, universities can benchmark against the introduced internship program to improve their current programs or establish a new program.

If any universities want to improve their current internship courses, or establish an internship program, the paper's findings offer some guidelines.

This paper examines the cross-cultural internship teaching experience of a mainland Chinese student of a Master's program on adult education in a Macao university.

Using autobiography, the data were collected from the teaching journals, biographical notes, and deep reflections of the student teacher, tracking the whole process of cross-cultural internship teaching. The data were analyzed in a grounded way, by scrutinizing the process to overcome the difficulties and challenges encountered in the two-month internship teaching period.

Three key themes were identified: (a) constructing relationship with mentor teacher as the key condition; (b) classroom interaction as an important influencing factor; (c) professional identity as the result of the learning-to-teach process. Furthermore, this paper reveals an adaptation process during the internship, where the student teacher went through three phases, namely, novice anxiety, adjustment, and ability acquisition.

This paper’s analysis on the internship teaching experience reflecting practical issues in the process has extended the literature of academic adaptation in internship learning of non-local students. Based on this cross-cultural student case under the unique mainland China-Macao cross-border context, some suggestions are provided for university policy makers and educators in Macao.