Abstract:

There is a vast amount of literature on the role of internships in marketing education (e.g. (Alpert et al., 2009; Hoyle & Goffnett, 2013; Lahm & Heriot, 2013; Swanson & Tomkovick, 2012; Wasonga & Murphy, 2006) as well as on the perspective of employers regarding marketing and business internships (e.g. Swanson & Tomkovick, 2011; Hall et al, 2015). Simultaneously, the literature on the quality criteria of internships (e.g. Feliciano et al., 2020; Goia Agoston et al., 2017; Marinaș et al., 2018) and on how to build successful internships (e.g Maertz Jr. et al., 2014; Ranabahu et al., 2020) is also vast.

Unsurprisingly, the literature on marketing internships in the context of pandemic crisis is still scarce. Moreover, the academic debate on workplace and organizational change practices within the COVID-19 context is emerging on a large scale (e.g. Amis & Greenwood, 2021; de Lucas Ancillo et al., 2020; Manuti et al., 2020), which will be valuable to frame the process of internship changes.

Through a qualitative methodology based on semi-structured interviews, this work examines the process of adapting marketing internships during pandemic times from the employers/host companies’ perspective. Concerning the sampling strategy, one important criterion is related to the experience. We selected interviewees with past and present internship meaningful experiences, (i.e., before and during the COVID-19 outbreak).

More specifically, this research addresses the following different dimensions:
(i) the effect of pandemic outbreaks on the (marketing) recruitment and selection strategy;
(ii) specificities and peculiarities of marketing internships;
(iii) new perspectives concerning the benefits and costs of (marketing) internships;
(iv) preparation and planning the internship duties and format (project vs job-based);
(v) matching internees’ with placements;
(vi) integration and capacity to host (resource allocation, including mentoring, IT arrangements, equipment and infrastructures); and
(vii) temporary versus permanent changes.

The authors believe that the paper will contribute to the areas of marketing and business (and other areas) to help better understand the processes of organisational change and, in parallel, the relationship between employers and universities as well as between employers and the labour market itself. Although we are highlighting the employers' perspective, the implications affect all educational triangle´s stakeholders: academic institutions/students /employers.

Keywords:

Marketing education, marketing practice, pandemics, internships, workplace change.