Determinants of Internship Satisfaction: Study of the Management Undergraduates of a Leading State University in Sri Lanka

Internship training has become an integral part of management degree programs offered in state and private universities in Sri Lanka. Even though the academic world focuses on internship training, a little attention has been given to examine the internship satisfaction. However, the internship satisfaction considered a critical factor in creating the desired graduate. Therefore, the current study attempts to examine, the determinants of internship satisfaction of commerce and management undergraduates providing the evidence from a leading state university in Sri Lanka. In addition to that, this study intends to contribute to filling the literature gap by investigating the associations between the determinants: university support; job characteristics; working environment; and the contextual factors with the internship satisfaction. Hence, this was a quantitative, cross-sectional study in which primary data were collected through a standard questionnaire distributed as an online google form to a sample of 237 final year undergraduates of the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka selected via the simple random sampling technique. Correlation and simple regression analysis were used to test the advanced hypotheses with the aid of SPSS and Excel. Findings reveal a significant positive impact of university support, job characteristics, working environment, and contextual factors on internship satisfaction of management undergraduates in the context. Accordingly, it is concluded that, if there is satisfaction in any of these four factors (university support, job characteristics, working environment, and contextual factors) the interns will be retained in that organization. The study results underlined that, if the right and preferred methodologies are being adopted in internships, interns will be able to obtain a greater level of exposure from their internships. Furthermore, this study raises the need for stakeholders to look at the determinants of internship satisfaction in a more serious and holistic approach.