There is consensus that entrepreneurially inclined individuals are more likely to start a business and that ESE further contributes to the formation of EI (Fayolle & Liñán 2014:665; Kautonen, Van Gelderen & Fink 2013:668; Sequeira, Mueller & Mcgee 2007:288). Devising more effective entrepreneurship educational programmes requires a better understanding of the dynamics behind business start-up decisions (Liñán, Rodríguez-Cohard & Rueda-Cantuche 2011:196). Given that the focus in entrepreneurship education is shifting towards experiential learning methods such as internships (Fayolle 2013:696), the question arises of whether or not internships enhance EI and ESE. To date, studies examining internships as antecedents of EI and ESE have been scarce in number and conducted in isolation. Taking the EI and ESE literature as point of departure, it is postulated that if internships do not increase the level of EI and ESE in individuals, then internship-based entrepreneurship education programmes have not been effective. In this paper, entrepreneurship education is broadly defined to include both education and training, which deal with knowledge transfer and skills transfer, respectively.

The aim of this paper is to conduct qualitative research by examining the empirical literature on whether or not internships enhance interns’ levels of EI and ESE. In order to ground the present study in a South African context, it also conducts a survey approach whereby the information on university-level programmes in South Africa is content analysed. This is done to identify which tertiary institutions offer internships as part of their entrepreneurship and business management programmes. (In this paper, ‘tertiary institutions’ in South Africa are narrowly defined as South African universities and universities of technology or Technikons). The consideration of both entrepreneurship and business management programmes was dictated by the awareness that entrepreneurship education can also be offered as part of a business management programme (Martínez et al. 2010:23). Since very few entrepreneurship and business management education programmes at tertiary-level in South Africa include an internship component, this paper contributes to entrepreneurship education practice by highlighting the role of internships in fostering EI and ESE, based on the empirical findings of previous studies. Reasons for the exclusion of internships are highlighted and possible solutions are presented.

This paper sets off by providing a brief overview of the supporting literature and then formulates research propositions. Thereafter, the research methodology is described and the empirical findings presented. The findings and their implications are discussed. Lastly, the limitations of the study are presented and recommendations for future research are highlighted.

The review of empirical studies that provide support for the relationship between internships and interns’ levels of EI and ESE is summarised in Table 1. Eleven sources of the 25 originally identified were discarded, as further analysis revealed that they did not pertain to the present investigation or had not conducted empirical analyses. This led to 14 studies being included in this investigation, all empirically supporting Proposition 1 and Proposition 2.

As shown in Table 1, out of the 14 studies in support of either or both Proposition 1 and Proposition 2, 13 studies report a positive influence of internships on the development of EI and six studies support the influence of internships on ESE.

The survey of the content of entrepreneurship and business management programmes, which used publicly available information and telephone communication, successfully retrieved the content of such programmes for all 23 South African tertiary institutions. A comprehensive reading list of the sources of this survey is available in Appendix 2.

The survey performed a content analysis of the data relating to the internship component of South African tertiary institutions’ entrepreneurship and business management programmes. The results of this content analysis are outlined in Appendix 1. The results reveal that Durban University of Technology is the only tertiary institution that has a programme including internships as part of its curriculum.

The next step involved interviews (personal, telephonic or via email) with the relevant academics in the field of entrepreneurship at the various tertiary institutions in South Africa. Ten experts in the field of entrepreneurship education at tertiary-level were interviewed; they were affiliated with the following tertiary institutions: Central University of Technology, Stellenbosch University, University of Johannesburg, University of Pretoria, University of the Free State, Vaal University of Technology, and Walter Sisulu University. The experts were identified according to the following process:

The interviews covered the following aspects, as previously mentioned: (1) the extent to which they are aware of the positive relationship between internships and the development of EI and ESE; (2) why internships were included in university-level entrepreneurship education programmes, and if not, why not and (3) what constraints they perceived to exist that might prevent their including internships in university-level entrepreneurship education programmes. Academics at the Durban University of Technology were not, however, available for interviews to provide reasons why they are including internships and the advantages of internships for their students.

Eight experts acknowledged that they were aware of the positive role played by internships in fostering interns’ EI and ESE.

As for the reasons why internships are not included in entrepreneurship and business management programmes, interviewee D and interviewee F referred to the lack of a sufficiently vast network of businesses in their geographical area to enable the inclusion of internships in their programmes. (Some institutions, despite facing the same challenge, have redesigned their programmes to include compulsory ‘work-integrated learning’, as stated by interviewee C.) Interviewee D also mentioned the administrative challenge of finding internships for a large number of students, while interviewee J admitted the lack of enough knowledge to warrant the inclusion of internships and the management thereof. Additionally, interviewee G and interviewee I mentioned small business owners’ lack of time and financial resources as major obstacles. Lack of administrative and other resources is also a constraint, as stated by interviewee H. It appears from the interviews that some universities – such as Stellenbosch University and the University of the Free State – support internships, but on an ad-hoc basis. They encourage students to find internships and they support them in securing these positions. The initiative, however, is taken by the students, usually at post-graduate level. Finally, interviewees A, B and G highlighted other experiential learning components in their programmes, which are meant to produce the same results – in terms of skills and knowledge development – as internships. These other forms of experiential learning range from having lecturers who have a vast experience in entrepreneurship and business, to creative problem-solving and effectuation learning techniques. From the perspective of students, interviewees E and G attested to an unsatisfactory experience on the part of students who managed to secure an internship.

With regard to possible constraints hindering universities from including internships in tertiary-education programmes, most experts mentioned the university’s lack of resources to manage and control internships, issues of curriculum redesign and academic credits, labour legislation constraints, and the lack of willingness and capacity of small business owners to mentor interns. Interviewees H, I and J also mentioned that whereas internships in large companies are more readily available, internships in small businesses are not easily found and are essentially different. According to them, the challenge lies in identifying the right internships, which ultimately means knowing which entrepreneur profile is most suited to accommodate an intern successfully.

The review of empirical literature conducted in this paper reveals that there is support for the proposition that internships as a form of experiential learning enhance students’ EI (P1). It appears, therefore, that when entrepreneurship education programmes include internships in their curriculum, participants are more likely to develop the intention to start a business. Some of the studies analysed in this paper reported empirically about the positive relationship between internships and EI, even outside an entrepreneurship education context. In other words, people who have an internship experience appear to have higher EI, even though they are not part of a formal entrepreneurship education intervention. This is in line with previous research about the impact of previous work experience on start-up intentions and activities (Gabrielsson & Politis 2012; Kemelgor, D’Souza & Henley 2011).

The review of empirical literature also provides evidence for the support of the proposition that internships as a form of experiential learning enhance students’ ESE (P2). This means that the hands-on experience gained during internships helps students to have a higher level of confidence in their capabilities to start and run their own business. This finding confirms the argument that internships are an effective learning method whereby participants acquire a greater knowledge of and confidence in the professional field underlying the internship experience (Kuijpers, Meijers & Gundy 2011:26).

Moreover, as can be noted in Table 1, most of the studies that empirically support the positive role of internships for the formation of ESE also give empirical evidence for the positive influence that internships have on EI. This finding can be attributed to the fact that ESE does not lead to entrepreneurial behaviour – such as business start-up activities – directly, but it influences entrepreneurial behaviour through its impact on EI (Kickul et al. 2008; Wilson et al. 2007; Zhao et al. 2005).

The implication for theory of these findings is that internships should be included in EI- and ESE-based models of entrepreneurial behaviour as one of the factors influencing these two constructs. As this paper’s review of empirical literature reveals, few studies have analysed the influence of internship on the development of EI and ESE (Alpert et al. 2009:37; Peltier & Scovotti 2010:515).

The relevance of internships for enhancing EI and ESE in a South African context was corroborated by the university-level entrepreneurship- and business management education survey whereby the data was content analysed in this paper. The results reveal that only one tertiary institution, the Durban University of Technology, includes internships as part of its curriculum. Proposition 3 is thus only supported in the case of the Durban University of Technology, one out of 23 South African tertiary institutions. There is a significant lack of inclusion of internships as a form of experiential learning in South African tertiary-level entrepreneurship and business management education programmes. For practice, these findings imply that entrepreneurship- and business management education programme administrators at South African tertiary institutions should devise an experiential learning module based on an internship experience. From a student’s perspective, the findings of this study suggest that a more effective acquisition of EI and ESE can be gained in university programmes that include an internship as part of the curriculum.

The interviews conducted with experts in the field of entrepreneurship education at tertiary-level revealed that there is widespread awareness of the positive role played by internship in enhancing interns’ EI and ESE. In light of this, the prevalent lack of inclusion of internships in university entrepreneurship and business management programmes seems contradictory. However, a number of reasons for this lack emerged from the interviews, pertaining mainly to administrative and conceptual difficulties. Administrative issues include: tertiary institutions’ lack of sufficient internal resources – human and financial – to scout, manage and control internships; difficulty in finding internships for all enrolled students due to lack of enough small businesses; and challenges related to curriculum redesign. Conceptual reasons for not including internships pertain mainly to some experts’ belief that there are other experiential learning curriculum components that are at least as effective as internships and easier to administer.

The constraints that were mentioned by the experts attest to the difficulty – mainly administrative – in successfully integrating internships into university programmes. Another considerable constraint is small business owners’ lack of capacity to mentor interns successfully. One possible solution to administrative challenges would be to pilot-test the inclusion of internships in a university programme with a manageable number of students. In this way, finding a number of suitable internships corresponding to the number of students would be more achievable. Moreover, such an initiative would not require significant investment in terms of academic staff and time. Finally, this solution would allow for establishing a stable relationship with a few, carefully selected, small business owners. This pilot-test inclusion of internships could be scaled up once it was established and had produced the intended results.

As for all qualitative research studies, the findings of this paper should be interpreted taking into account certain limitations. Firstly, the literature review methodology employed could have excluded some empirical studies, owing to the search criteria that were utilised. Some studies may also have been overlooked on account of some degree of subjectivity on the part of the researchers in retrieving studies that were deemed relevant to the present analysis.

The relatively small number of empirical studies on the topic of internships and their impact on interns’ EI and ESE that were found in this study gives an indication of the research gap that exists in this field. There is a need to conduct more empirical investigations into the positive role that internships play in fostering EI and ESE. This recommendation stems from the results of the literature review (Table 1) conducted in this paper, which encompassed the global domain of entrepreneurship and thus affects the entire body of research on the topic of this paper. A meta-analysis could be conducted on all the studies on this topic to test the relationship between internships, EI and self-efficacy even further.

More specifically, research on this topic needs to move forward to the investigation of what internship components make internships more effective in promoting the formation of EI and ESE. This would encourage research that could contribute to the understanding of how to devise internship experiences that effectively increase interns’ levels of EI and ESE. More evidence on the positive influence of internship experiences on the formation of EI and ESE would corroborate the earlier conclusion that internships should be part of entrepreneurship education programmes.

Bearing in mind that EI and ESE do not always translate into entrepreneurial behaviour in the form of starting a business venture (Ajzen 1985:11; Boyd & Vozikis 1994:70), future research should investigate the possible mechanisms according to which internships may contribute to people’s start-up activities. For this type of analysis to take place, it is necessary that longitudinal studies be conducted, measuring both the development of EI and ESE in the short term and business start-up activities in the long term.

In order to situate the analysis of the role of internships in enhancing levels of EI and ESE in the context of entrepreneurship education at university-level, future research could compare the levels of EI and ESE of students enrolled in internship-inclusive entrepreneurship programmes with those of students enrolled in traditional entrepreneurship programmes.

Finally, with the objective of identifying and sharing best practices in the inclusion of internships in university programmes, future research could conduct case study investigations of the tertiary institutions – in South Africa and outside of South Africa – that have successfully integrated internships in their curricula.