A model for effective internship programs: An opportunity for increasing synergies between universities and companies to enhance student learning

Internship programs have been one of the primary vehicles to provide students with opportunities to apply what they have learned in their IE programs to the "real world". Previous studies have identified the determinants of internship effectiveness with exploratory models by studying the relationship among students, university and host company, and their effect on outcomes such as student satisfaction and likelihood of project implementation. It is also known that this tripartite interaction is significantly affected by the project (awareness, selection, feedback and scope), the faculty advisor (selection and role), and university studies (helpfulness and student learning). However, internship program schemes appear to ignore a balanced interaction among these factors, limiting the experimental learning experience of students and benefits grasped by companies. In this paper, we propose an innovative scheme for internship programs in which the aforementioned critical factors are improved by integrating continuous education programs, such as Lean Six Sigma certification programs-typically offered by universities, to the IE curriculum. Our proposed model is expected to increase student satisfaction and likelihood of project implementation. In this way, we expect to maximize synergies between universities and companies, while enhancing experimental learning for students.