Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008
UNDERGRADUATE INTERNSHIP ATTACHMENT IN ACCOUNTING:
THE INTERNS PERSPECTIVE
Yazkhiruni Yahya ψ, Rusnah Muhamad, Suhaily Shahimi, Nurmazilah Mahzan and Naaimah Ahmad Radzi
University of Malaya, Malaysia
______________________________________________________________________________________
Abstract
Universities normally offer internship or practical training for undergraduate students to provide a smooth
transition from academic environment to working environment. Nowadays, internships are increasingly
essential components of educational preparation and are often viewed as a ‘win-win’ situation for both the
intern and the intern’s employers. From students’ point of view, they can learn about the profession and
gain practical experiences and reflect what they have learned in the classroom. For employing firms,
internships provide sources for future employees and opportunity to maintain relationship with education
institutions. This paper reports on an exploratory study conducted to examine the impact of internship
attachment on accounting students: what interns had learnt; the process by which they learnt; the effect of
what had been learnt on their expectations on their future profession; and their choice of a future career.
The study is also aims to investigate student’s opinion on the organization that they have attached on the
issue of whether they have been given a chance to participate and receive good cooperation from the
organization. Questionnaires survey is used to gather the data.
Keywords: Internship attachment; Interns; Intern’s employers; Accounting; Business; Academic
performance.
JEL Classification Codes: F31 ; F32.
1. Introduction
Most of higher learning institutions in this country offer internships for their undergraduate students to
provide a smooth transition from the academic world to the working environment. Although these
programs vary widely in their requirement and structure, universities share the common goal of providing
learning opportunities for their students to have better understanding of the actual working environment in
an organization. Internship has a number of meanings. Davies (1990) notes that the internship is a kind of
experiential learning where students take the opportunity to apply learned theories from schools in the real
world situations and it provides an opportunity for students to integrate and consolidate thinking and action.
Lam and Ching (2006) (as cited in Fox (2001)) suggest that internship may be used as an opportunity for
students to close the gap between colleges learnt theory and practical reality. In addition, McMahon and
Quinn (1995) propose that internship may be treated as ‘supervised work experiences’ where students are
closely supervise during their internship attachment.
Prior research highlighted various issues relating to internship attachment, including the importance of
relevant practical experiences from students’ perception (Mounce, Mauldin and Braun, 2004); effects of
internship predictors on the successful field of experiences (Beard and Morton, 1999); the importance of
practical experiences towards recruiting decisions of Accounting employers (Pasewark, Strawser and
Wilkerson, 2001); study on accounting internship and subsequent academic performances ( English and
Koeppen, 1993) and benefits and limitations of internship as viewed by educators and retailers (Parker,
1998).
ψ
Corresponding author. Yazkhiruni Yahya. Department of Financial Accounting and Auditing, Faculty of
Business and Accountancy, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Email:
[email protected]
Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008
Therefore, academician and practitioner do recognized the importance and contribution of internship
experiences to students, institutions and employers. The study is aims to examine the perception of the
interns relating to various issues of their internship attachment. Specifically, the study is focusing on what
interns had learnt; the process by which they learnt; the effect of what had been learnt on their expectations
on their future profession; and their choice of a future career. The study is also aims to investigate the
opinion of the interns on the organization they have attached on the issues of cooperation and decision
making process.
The paper is organized as follows. The following section provides the review of relevant literature on
internship attachment, followed by a discussion on the research methodology adopted in this study. The
remaining sections report the findings and conclusion of the study.
2. General attitudes and support on internship program
Prior research highlight that the internship program contribute significantly and positively towards
enhancing the knowledge base and motivational level of students. These experiences can make subsequent
study more meaningful and are able to develop students professionally before entering the marketplace
(Beard, 1998). In December 2007, International Federation of Accountants under International Accounting
Education Practice Statements 3 had issued a guideline known as Practical Experience Requirements –
Initial Professional Development for Professional Accountants. The main objective of this guideline is to
enable interns to develop and demonstrate the professional knowledge, professional skills and professional
values, ethics and attitude required to perform their work competently and to help interns to develop the
skill they need to maintain their competencies in performing the tasks. The guideline also highlights the
importance of integrating the formal education and practical experiences to enable the interns to develop
their professional knowledge and professional skills so as to demonstrate their competence. Burnett (2003),
reports that in the late 1999, four organizations have jointly sponsored a study to initiate changes
accounting education. These organizations are the American Accounting Association (AAA), The
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Institute of Management Accountants
(IMA) and the “Big 5” professional services firms. As a result, in 2000, a monograph was published
entitled ‘Accounting Education: Charting the Course through a Perilous Future’. The monograph
concentrated on 3 main areas namely professional skills, technology skills and outside the classroom
learning activities. Burnett (2003) has developed a framework which is based on the monograph issued.
Burnett (2003) concurs with the findings established in the monograph which concluded that the best
outside classroom learning activity is through an internship attachment.
Mihail (2006) found that students from Greek Universities acknowledge that the internship program is a
valuable way to acquire broad competencies where practical knowledge obtained support and complement
theoretical studies learn in the classrooms. Both students and employers strongly agreed that experiences
and exposures to the real job setting obtained from the internship program are more valuable than
additional course works i.e. case studies and guest speakers in classes. (Hall, Stiles, Kuzma and Elliott,
1995). This finding also corroborated with earlier research which found that the interns with practical
experience reported positive changes in feelings of personal and social efficacy (Bernstein 1997) and
showing a greater sense of responsibility and career development (Hursh and Borzak 1979; Williams 1990;
Eyler 1992). It was also found that interns have described internship as a bridge between the theory of the
classroom and the world of practice (Nevett, 1985).
Brooks et al., (1995) and Taylor (1998) also reported that completion of internships program have found to
improve individual career decision making self efficacy and strengthen the crystallization of vocational self
concept. By having high self confident, students then able to find and market themselves after graduation
more effectively. Mihail (2006) establishes that interns have successfully developed their personal skills
during the period of attachment, thus, improving their employability. Prior research have shown that
internship program during undergraduate years is a useful strategy in helping to secure a career – oriented
position after graduation (Callanan and Benzing, 2004; Brooks et al., 1995; Garavan and Murphy, 2001;
Knouse et al., 1999 and Taylor, 1998). Tackett, Wolf and Law (2001) suggest that educational institutions
are responsible to ensure that internships are meaningful learning experiences for interns. The importance
of internship program also been recognized in other fields i.e. journalism and mass communications (Beard
and Morton 1999), marketing (Gault, Redington and Schlager, 2000), education (Burnett 2003).
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Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008
Interns and employers’ expectations towards the internship program
Various researches investigate expectations of students and employers towards the internship program.
Mihail (2006) asserts that induction courses are required to equip students with working knowledge to cope
with their specific job role. He found that induction courses enable students to alleviate anxiety and
facilitate adaptation to company’s culture and the new value system.
Students expect that as an intern, they should be paid and be treated as regular employees. Hall et. al.,
(1995), however found a conflicting opinion on the part of employers. They found that employers are not
willing to treat interns as regular employees, as such; they should be assigned duties that are appropriate for
college students.
Knemeyer and Murphy (2002) found that interns are likely to assign higher ratings to selected issues
investigated on internships as compared to employers. They found that there are statistically significant
differences for ten out of 18 internship issues investigated. Hite and Bellizi (1986), investigating
perceptions of 441 students regarding their internship experiences, reported that students’ highest overall
agreement was with the declaration that the internship provided a valuable learning experience that would
complement their course works.
Students view collegiate internships as more than simply a method of enhancing their learning about
particular business careers; it is a means of improving students’ chances of employment upon graduation. A
Scott (1992) state that placement directors, recent graduates and students believed that internship is the
most effective strategy for the employment opportunity. He also found that students believed that internship
is the best way to explore the suitability of a particular job.
According to Raymond and McNabb (1993), the recruiters (employers) discovered that many graduates
lack of working experiences and have unrealistic expectations and poor communications skills. Moreover,
they found that among the most effective ways of assisting students to acquire the essential skills to be
successful in the business arena were through internships, projects sponsored by business organizations,
guest speakers, cases and simulations.
Benefits of internship attachment to employers, interns and faculties
The rationale in offering the internship attachment as part of the academic program is that students benefit
from these internships experiences and exposures. Benefits include improvements in career direction
(Perez, 2001; Beard and Morton, 1999), job preparedness (Perez, 2001), marketability (Swift and Kent,
1999; Maynard, 1999; Hymon-Parker and Smith, 1998), job expectations (Knouse et al., 1999),
interpersonal skills (Beard and Morton, 1999), leadership (Cook, Parker and Pettijohn, 2000), and
understanding of the business applications of classroom learning (Hymon-Parker and Smith, 1998). Taking
stock the various benefits, it is noticeable that an internship attachment is in the best interest for students.
Gault, Redington and Schlager (2000) indicate that there will be a significant important early career
advantages for undergraduate with internship experiences. The advantages included less time to obtain their
first job, increased monetary compensation and greater overall job satisfaction. They also indicate that the
internship attachment is able to provide career benefits to students, positive implications for marketing
educators, university administrators and employers. In addition, empirical research in cognitive psychology
has established that the prior experiences are able to enhance the performance in fairly complex learning
and problem solving tasks (Britton and Tesser, 1982). This finding has also been supported by Ricks et al.,
(1989) when they theorized that when individuals used their work experiences to a subsequent learning
environment, they are in better position to ‘analyze and question the theory’ and as result, such experience
serves as ‘ learning condition which fosters and sustains the work and school environments’.
According to Rothman (2007), the following issues need to be considered by employer who works with
interns to achieve maximum benefits from internship attachment.
1.
2.
3.
Have clear understanding of what they want the intern to achieve.
Clearly communicate expectations at the commencement of the internship in an organized manner.
Give tough assignments.
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Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Provide a logical time frame for accomplishing tasks.
Give meaningful advice on an on-going basis.
Be on hand to the intern for guidance
Expose the intern to the other parts of the business.
Treat interns with respect.
She recommends that larger organizations should apply these suggestions in their recruitment and retention
efforts. This is because interns are employees of tomorrow whereby organizations can garner the benefits
of these interns’ suggestions to improve and include them in their current human resources recruiting
processes. This is mainly helpful when organizations use the internship as an opportunity to recruit new
employees. As one intern said, “The quality of the internship reflects on the quality of the organization.”
In addition, Mihail (2006) reports that the internship program benefits students most in terms of
information technology, time management, communication skills, team work, specialist knowledge and
ability to prioritize tasks. In addition, internship attachments are found to successfully enhanced students’
academic performance, particularly the auditing courses (Knechel and Snowball, 1987). The same finding
was established in English and Koeppen (1993) study, whereby internship students performed significantly
better than those non-internship students in accounting courses and in overall GPA performance subsequent
to their internship attachments.
According to Cannon and Arnold (1998), internship may pave the way for permanent employment upon
graduation as well as providing an in-depth understanding of actual business practices. It was found that
business school graduates that have gone through internship attachment tend to secure their first jobs faster
than graduates without internship experiences (Knouse, Tanner and Harris, 1999). Further, business
graduates with internship experiences are likely to get conspicuously higher starting pay and report greater
job satisfaction as compared to their non-internship counterparts (Gault, Redington and Schlager, 2000).
Cook, Parker and Pettijohn’s (2004) study has provided empirical support for general opinions regarding
the value of internship programs. They note that these programs are perceived as being valuable to students
as well as providing some important implications for both potential intern employers and the universities
that coordinated these programs. They also concluded that if the university’s mission is to produce wellrounded graduates, the internship experiences possibly should be an academic requirement rather than an
option because what students gain from direct work experiences through internship is more than what they
learn theoretically in the classrooms. Therefore, the faculty should continuously review its program to
ensure what is being taught is relevant to the industry. This is consistent with Cook et al., (2004) study in
which certain factors inherent in the internship, including leadership experience and teamwork, cannot be
taught in classrooms. They believed that these qualities are learned from participation in extra-curricular
activities and working experiences.
3. Research methodology
The current study has been undertaken to examine intern’s perceptions on the selected issues relating to the
internship attachment, particularly their perception before and after the internship. For that purpose, seven
pages questionnaires were distributed among accounting students who have completed their internship
attachment at the Faculty of Business and Accountancy, University Malaya for the academic year of
2007/2008. The questionnaire is divided into four sections namely, Section A: Demographic; Section B:
Students’ perception before going for the internship attachment; Section C: Students’ opinion after the
Internship attachment: and Section D: Other related issues. Once gathered, the data were tested for
normality and reliability. An examination of the values of skewness and kurtosis indicate that all items are
reasonably normally distributed.
4. Results and discussions
A total of 243 students are involved in the internship attachment for the session 2007/2008. However, only
156 questionnaires were returned, representing a response rate of 64.20%. A demographic profile for the
interns is captured in Table 1. Majority of the interns are female and more than half are Chinese. 68.6 % of
the interns did their internship attachment in accounting/auditing firms. In terms of location, the majority of
interns choose to do their internship in Kuala Lumpur/Selangor.
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Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008
Table 1: Demographic profiles for BACC students
Frequency
Gender
Male
Female
Ethnicity
Malay
Chinese
India
Others
Academic Qualifications
STPM
Diploma
Matriculation
Institutions of Placement
Accounting/Auditing Firm
Trading Companies
Financial Companies
Others
Location
Kuala Lumpur/Selangor
Others
Years of study
Third year
Final year
Duration of Internship
10 Weeks
12 Weeks
Total Interns: 156
Percent
32
124
20.5
79.5
37
112
6
1
23.7
71.8
3.8
0.6
41
103
12
26.3
66.0
7.7
127
4
3
22
81.4
2.6
1.9
14.1
107
49
68.6
31.4
9
146
5.8
93.6
151
5
96.8
3.2
The paired sample t-test is use to measure the gaps in the interns’ perceptions on what can be achieved
from the internship attachment before they go for their attachment and what are actually achieved from
their attachment after they have completed the attachment. The results are presented in Table 2. Generally,
we can conclude that they have not achieved what they are expecting to achieve from their attachment.
Comparing the two mean values obtained for items under the two situations (i.e. before and after) reveal
that eighteen of the mean values for items under the situation “before” are higher than those mean values
for the same items under the situation labeled as “after”. The result shows that what are expected to be
achieved from the internship attachment is generally are not able to be achieved by the interns. The two
items which interns perceived as being achieved are item 8 (i.e. enhance knowledge in public sector
accounting) and item 20 (i.e. providing the necessary information and experience in choosing the right
career path upon graduation). Thus, internship has successfully improved the interns’ career directions as
suggested by Perez (2001) and Beard and Morton (1999).
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Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008
Table 2: Perception of interns before and after the internship attachment
No
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
The internship experience is able/had prepared me to be
better employees in the future.
The internship experience is provides/had provided me
with the relevant knowledge and practical experiences to
assist me in adapting myself to my future working
environment.
The internship experience will help/helped me to relate the
theories learned in the classroom to the work environment.
The internship experiences will help/helped me to enhance
knowledge in internal auditing.
The internship experiences will help/helped me to enhance
knowledge in external auditing.
The internship experiences will help/helped me to enhance
knowledge in financial accounting and reporting.
The internship experiences will help/helped me to enhance
knowledge in management accounting.
The internship experiences will help/helped me to enhance
knowledge in public sector accounting.
The internship experiences will help/helped me to enhance
knowledge in tax accounting.
The internship experiences will help/helped me to enhance
my ability to prepare financial statements.
The internship experiences will help/helped me to have
better understanding in interpreting and evaluating financial
statements.
The internship experiences will help/helped me to develop
my problem solving skill.
The internship experiences will help/helped me to develop
my communication skill.
The internship experiences will help/helped me to develop
my interpersonal skill.
The internship experiences will help/helped me to improve
my personal confidence and self-esteem.
The internship experience is able/had given me the
exposure to the latest technology adopted in the work
place.
The internship attachment is able/had given me the
opportunity to build up rapport and networking with people
in the industry and business arena.
The internship attachment is able/had given me the
opportunity to earn some money.
The internship attachment will provide/had provided me
with the necessary job experiences that can improve my
chances to get good job upon graduation.
The internship attachment will provide/had provided me
with the necessary information and experiences to choose
the right career path upon graduation.
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Mean
(Before)
Mean
(After)
Std.
Dev
t
value
(sig.
p<0.0
5)
5.72
5.58
0.902
0.064
5.83
5.63
0.757
0.001
5.21
5.19
0.926
0.796
4.51
4.36
1.433
0.182
5.29
5.12
1.050
0.048
5.17
5.14
1.044
0.702
4.31
4.19
1.308
0.269
3.49
3.58
1.285
0.419
4.82
4.76
1.307
0.538
5.09
5.03
0.961
0.403
5.29
5.23
0.840
0.342
5.31
5.27
0.849
0.572
5.57
5.54
0.860
0.709
5.80
5.52
0.849
0.000
5.49
5.38
0.950
0.131
5.15
4.88
1.252
0.007
5.09
5.07
0.926
0.796
4.90
4.74
1.100
0.060
5.55
5.52
0.953
0.675
5.50
5.61
0.926
0.120
Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008
However, the gaps are found to be significant for items 1; 2; 5; 14 and 16. The findings suggest that the
interns are not able to achieve the job preparedness (items 1 and 2) as recommended by Perez (2001).
Auditing is always perceived to be a “dry” subject. This perception may possibly lead the interns to put the
high expectation on the internship attachment in enhancing their knowledge in external auditing in
particular. This finding is contrasted with the results obtained by Knechel and Snowball (1987) where they
found that the internship has successfully enhanced interns’ understanding in auditing. It is also perceived
that the attachment is able to improve interns’ interpersonal skill (such as work in team and personal
grooming) as reflected in the t value for item 14. Again this finding is contrasted with what has been found
in Beard and Morton (1999) study. The interns also felt that they are not getting appropriate exposure on
the latest technology used in the work place where they are attached to.
Lastly, for section E (other related issue), students have been asked on their perception relating to
responsible parties to arrange for their internship placement. The result shows that 43.6 % of the interns felt
that the faculty should work together with them for the placement. The majority of interns (70.5%) think
that the most appropriate internship period should be 6 months. This indicated that interns willing to have
longer internship period and believed that they can learn more within 6 months period.
5. Conclusion
In general, we can conclude that the interns perceived the internship attachment as not able to give them the
benefits that are expected to be achieved from the attachment. However, the internship has been regarded
as successfully provided guidance to them in choosing their career path as well as in enhancing their
knowledge in public sector accounting. The interns generally felt that the present internship period of ten to
twelve weeks is not sufficient for them to learn. This factor may possibly contribute towards the gaps in
their perceptions as described in the preceding section. The same feedback is noted from employers when
the members of the faculty visited the interns at their attachment places. As a result, the period of
attachment for the Bachelor of Accounting students starting from the academic year of 2007/2008 for all
public universities has been extended to six months (or twenty four months) under the Direction of
Accounting Program 2.
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