Internship Work-related Stress: A Comparative Study between Hospitality and Marketing Students

ABSTRACT

Occupational stress among full-time employees has attracted considerable research attention. However, rarely have hospitality and marketing interns been the focus of work stress empirical investigations. This study explores perceived workplace stress experiences and its effects on internship satisfaction and turnover intention among hospitality and marketing students in a Ghanaian technical university. A sample of 285 respondents, conveniently selected, completed self-structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and Mann Whitney U test. The commonly reported work stressors were “no pay” “repetitive work,” “transportation challenges,” “different supervisor requirement,” and long working hours”. Conspicuously, hospitality students reported higher levels of stress compared to marketing students. Most importantly, stress was related to lower internship satisfaction but higher levels of turnover intentions among students. Implications of the findings for practice are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Internship
• stress
• satisfaction
• turnover intention
• hospitality and marketing students
• Ghana