Higher education internships have been studied in different aspects, mainly from the student or university perspective. To contribute to the understanding of the third actor in this type of university-industry cooperation, the paper examines employers' perspectives on higher education internships.
Through a literature review and based on Narayanan et al. (2010) conceptual model, an a priori model was developed, which was then validated by a multiple-case study in a Portuguese undergraduate course.
The findings reveal rich and meaningful insights into an under-researched area, including validation of seven antecedents, two processes and six outcomes of internships from the employer's perspective. This research showed that employers give great importance to outcomes of internships, either in terms of productivity, possible future recruitment, inflow of ideas, behaviours and competences or the intern's satisfaction.
The findings suggest the need for universities to undertake more collaboration with industry, as the employers made weak references to the creation and maintenance of ties with the educational institution, denoting low motivation. On the other hand, most of the outcomes for employers found in the literature are confirmed, except for the continued inflow of ideas construct. This may evidence some lack of strategic thinking related to the internship programs on part of the employers.
This paper validates and extends the dispersed findings of existing research by providing a useful, unifying conceptual model of the employer's perspective on higher education internships, which can be tested at other levels of education or in other countries.
