This paper reports on an investigation into international co-op student exchange between the University of Waikato in New Zealand and overseas tertiary institutions and employers. A case study approach was used and the research sought to better understand employers’ perceptions of the advantages and difficulties associated with employing international co-op. The employers in this study took on international co-ops for placements for pragmatic reasons, not dissimilar to the reasons they employed local coops and gain the usual benefits that they do for local co-ops. Added advantages for employers of international coops include access to workers when local co-ops were not available, increased enthusiasm and commitment, and new perspectives based on an outsiders’ prior experiences. Disadvantages include inability to keep co-ops on after the placement, increased paperwork and occasional problems with low work ethic. The main reason the employers took on international co-ops was to support their local tertiary education provider.
Cooperative education as an educational strategy has shown tremendous growth over the years. From modest beginnings in engineering (McCallum & Wilson, 1988) coop has now grown to be a worldwide tool for the education of graduates in a variety of disciplines and in many countries (see, e.g., Aleisa & Alabdulahfez, 2002; Coll, Pinyonatthagarn, Pramoolsook, & Zegwaard, 2002; De Lange, 2002; Göhringer, 2002). In recent times there has been great interest in the internationalization of co-op in which students from co-op programs conduct work placements in countries outside their mother country. This interest was highlighted in the 2001 World Association for Cooperative Education (WACE) international conference in Nakhon Ratchasima in Thailand that had as a theme ‘Globalization of Cooperative Education’ and numerous papers that addressed some aspect of the internationalization of co-op (see, e.g., Srisa-an, 2001; Engelbrecht, 2001; Turpin, 2001).
We have offered coop in the School of Science & Technology at the University of Waikato for over 20 years (Chapman, 1994; Coll, 1996). During this time we too have experienced an increase in demand for international placements; both from overseas students wishing to work in New Zealand, and New Zealand students wishing to be placed overseas (Coll & Chapman, 2000a). These placements have been carried out as exchange arrangements in cooperation with other tertiary institutions. Securing international placements is a complex and resource intensive process that frequently proves problematic (Heller & Geringer, 1984; Lee & Swinth, 1986). In recognition of this fact, WACE has produced a set of guidelines for facilitating international placements (Reeves, Schultz, & Laslett, 1997). This comprehensive document provides suggestions for addressing the numerous logistical difficulties involved in securing suitable international placements. Employers form an essential part of any co-op program, including international co-op programs, and there have been calls in the literature to provide data to support claims of the benefits of co-op for employers (see, e.g., Hurd & Hendy, 1997). For instance, an employer that simply seeks to tap into a temporary semiskilled workforce will likely have different needs to one that sees co-op as part of a recruitment strategy. Leary found that some employers offer co-op support for altruistic reasons “with no thought of any specific gain for the organization. He or she might regard it as good citizenship” (p. 2), but goes on to point out that analyzing the reasons that a company wishes to be involved in a co-op program (local or international) is the “first step towards a successful program” (p. 2). There have been few reports of employers’ experiences of international exchange placements in the literature (but, see Coll, OwusuBanno & van Loon, 1999; Dowdle, 1996; Gorman & Scott, 1996).
This inquiry adds to the co-op literature in that it builds on a similar in-depth study of students’ perceptions of international placements (Coll & Chapman, 2000a) and seeks to understand why employers take on overseas students for co-op placements. In particular, the study investigates employers’ perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages associated with international co-op placements.
The overall purpose of this research inquiry was to gain an understanding of employers’ perceptions of international co-op placements. This research purpose was refined to form three research questions:
Because the researcher wished to probe employers’ views in depth, a naturalistic, case study methodology was employed (Guba & Lincoln, 1989, 1994; Merriam, 1988).
Participants were selected from a cohort of science and technology employers involved in exchange arrangements between the School of Science & Technology at the University of Waikato in Hamilton New Zealand and a number of overseas partner tertiary institutions. The sample included six New Zealand employers who had taken on international students for placements outside New Zealand and five employers from overseas countries who had taken on New Zealand students. Employers were purposefully selected to create a distribution of science and technology disciplines and locations (although there were more from chemistry and the Earth sciences), a mixture of public and private sectors, and different sized organizations from modest locally based companies to major multinational and manufacturing concerns. The New Zealand employers were; the two largest analytical/environmental chemical service laboratories (both with analyst staffing of ca. 100- 150); a multinational environmental consulting company concerned with civil engineering with branches throughout the country and across the world (with a New Zealand based staffing of in excess of 500); a local authority charged with the administration and monitoring of local government facilities (e.g., water and sewerage supply) with a particular focus on companies compliance with environmental legislation; and a multinational manufacturer of metal containers for the food industry. The other employing organization was one of the country’s largest government-funded research institutes whose research focused on the horticultural and agricultural industries. The overseas companies consisted of one of the UKs largest food manufacturing companies - a large multinational organization with several thousand staff and sites in 35 countries across the globe; two large USA based chemical companies - again with a large staff and many manufacturing sites; and two large national UK-based utilities (recently privatized). The employers that participated in this study worked in technical roles (e.g., as environmental consultants) or were scientific staff working/heading laboratories or technical teams involved in activities such as product development and technical services.
There are no formal entry criteria for international co-ops at Waikato, other than the fact that international placements are only offered to thirdyear students who are embarking on a nine-month placement. New Zealand universities do not generally use GPAs, and at Waikato University a letter coding system is used instead with, for example, the awarding of an ‘A’ grade requiring a aggregate performance of 80%+ coming from a mixture of internal assessment and final examinations. All Waikato international co-ops have good academic records (i.e., typically an ‘A’ or better) and have completed a minimum of three years of academic studies and one three-month placement before heading overseas for their placements. The Waikato placement coordinators screen interested students on the basis of academic records and performance in their initial three-month placement (based on feedback from their employers). Overseas partner tertiary institutions included Australian, UK and USA universities and a technical institute in the Netherlands. Overseas students visiting New Zealand for international placements are self-selected although they typically undergo extensive briefing by New Zealand placement coordinators before final approval. All these participants were required to possess sound academic backgrounds acceptable to the New Zealand placement coordinators. This is sometimes hard for New Zealand placement coordinators and employers to judge as, for example, letter grades used in the UK ‘A-levels’ or university grades are based on different percentage marks in a course or examination than New Zealand. Likewise, many New Zealand employers are not familiar with the GPA system popular in the USA. In practice, the New Zealand placement coordinators facilitating the placements with New Zealand employers initially accepted the advice of overseas academics until the placement coordinators and employers became more familiar with these systems. At the time the research was conducted, the New Zealand employers that participated in the study had taken overseas students for many years and looked for comparisons between the new students and previous students from the same tertiary institution. This, rather than specific academic grades, GPAs, and so on, provided the basis for employment decisions. Students recruited into New Zealand companies and organizations had typically completed two years minimum academic studies and varied as to whether or not they had any previous co-op experience, because of the nature of their local co-op programs. For example, the UK students typically conduct co-op in the form of a sandwich degree, completing a single one-year placement between the second and fourth years of a four-year undergraduate degree (Cass et al., 2002). Hence they came to New Zealand with two years of academic experience and no co-op work experience.
The principal data collection tool consisted of indepth, semi-structured interviews (for a detailed discussion of the appropriateness of this approach see, Coll & Chapman, 2000b). The semi-structured interviews utilized an interview guide (Appendix A) that consisted of a list of issues identified prior to the interview (Patton, 1990; Wireman, 1986). In these interviews, there was no set order to the questions and the specific wording used varied from participant to participant. The interview guide served as a form of checklist to ensure that all relevant topics were covered. There is a considerable degree of flexibility retained in this approach, making it well suited for indepth inquiries. This data collection strategy was chosen because it afforded the investigator the opportunity to probe issues of interest in depth, in a manner not easily achievable, using, for example, a survey instrument. In addition, the interactive nature of the interviews allowed participants and the interviewer to clarify ambiguity in questions and responses. The use of the interview guide helped to make the data gathering more systematic, facilitating analysis. The checklist of questions used in the interviews was developed from informal interviews with New Zealand and overseas placement coordinators; being a naturalistic inquiry, the checklist was constantly re-examined and modified slightly as the inquiry matured (Gobi & Lincoln, 1994). Data triangulation was achieved by examination of relevant documents such as student placement reports and literature published by the employers and tertiary institutions participating in the exchange programs (Dentin & Lincoln, 1998). These latter data were used to develop an understanding of the nature of the companies business and the nature of the work the students undertook during placement and served to aid interpretation of interview data (Matheson, 1988; Pecking, 1993).
All the interviews were audio-taped, fully transcribed, and participant validated. Participant validation required the participants to read transcriptions of their interviews and confirm that these represented their views about the issues discussed. In a number of instances further informal interviews were conducted to clarify ambiguity. Data analysis involved the development of a Concept Profile Inventory (CPI) based on methods described in the education literature (Eriksson, 1979, 1980; Rollick & Rutherford, 1990). Commonality of views among participants’ conceptual inventories was deduced from examination of the individual inventories, and used to address the research questions. The interpretations of the research findings are described herein and are supported by extracts from the transcriptions. Transcriptions have undergone editing to make them more readable: the author was careful not to change the meaning, and editing consisted solely of removal of repeated words or phrases, and changes of tense and the like.
The research findings were surprisingly similar for the employers, with similar themes coming from the data irrespective of the location of the employers. This overview comment should, however, be viewed with some caution as the study is a case study and the sample is a convenience sample. It is important to remember this latter fact when interpreting these research findings; commonality of views may have arisen from the sample selection in that the participants were staff involved in science and technology disciplines and their views may not be typical of other staff even in the same organization.
The first part of the interview was used to gain an understanding of the profile of employing organizations and their recruitment procedures for international students. The overall aim of this part of the interview was to gain an understanding of the nature of the expected roles the international co-ops played during their placements.
The purpose of this phase of the interviews was to develop an understanding of the nature of the section or part of the company where the international co-op worked (additional data were gleaned from company reports, web sites and the like). As described in the introduction, the employing organizations varied from large multi-nationals in the case of USA, UK and European countries, to more modest-sized private commercial organizations in New Zealand, employing ca. 100 staff. The organizations, both in New Zealand and overseas, employed a significant proportion (range 60 – 100%) of tertiary qualified staff, including graduate (bachelor’s level) and postgraduates (masters and doctoral level). The second phase of the interviews looked into the hiring procedures, comparing processes used for permanent staff with that of co-ops and international co-ops to help understand the nature of the role the international co-ops were expected to play in the organization and to see if this role was different to local co-op students or casual employees.
Company recruitment of permanent staff typically
involved extensive advertising locally and overseas
for general technical positions if they required highlevel
or specialty qualifications (e.g., masters or
doctoral graduates, or engineering graduates). This
was restricted to local advertising for technical
assistant positions (e.g., conducting routine quality
control work, or providing low level assistance for
engineers and scientists on project work), but
national and sometimes international for more senior
posts especially if doctoral level qualifications were
required. Short-listed candidates for the permanent
posts were interviewed extensively, often several
times and routinely undertook psychometric tests.
For example, Nigel said:
Firstly they’d send in their résumé,
so they’re screened on the basis of
their résumés. Then there’s an
interview process where we
concentrate on the knowledge,
experience and whether we think the
person will fit into the team. There
also are some practical tests. Some
mathematical questions, chemistry
questions and so on.
The recruitment processes for the international coops were different to that for permanent employees. The main reason given for this variation in practice was because of the temporary nature of the work undertaken as seen in Jacks’ comment that “basically they’re only temporary, they’re here for a short term, and having come from the university one would expect a reasonable degree of literacy and numeracy.”
Students were chosen for international coop
on the basis of contacts with local
placement coordinators. For example, Sam, a
UK employer worked though a UK tertiary
institution to secure his New Zealand student.
His local placement coordinator put him in
direct contact with a New Zealand-based
placement coordinator, and Sam relied
heavily on this individual’s recommendation:
It’s a different process, the process
we go through with New Zealand
students. The process we’ve gone
through with that is, we’ve relied on
the recommendation of the New
Zealand coordinator, if you like, in
terms of providing the CV. We then
did a bit of a crawl through the CVs
and the way I’ve done it the last
couple of years is have a chat to the
person we’ve selected, over the
phone and just get a general
impression. I think in that process
we’re more reliant on the
coordinator only putting forward
people they think are appropriate.
Other employers expressed similar sentiments with Nigel, New Zealand employer, saying “that was just based on the CV and the recommendations of the university contact.”
The work undertaken on placement was similar for
local and international co-ops. The response of Alan,
a New Zealand based employer of earth sciences coops,
is typical:
Alan: The way we worked it was
that the students would be
warned that they would have
a job working in the lab,
basically as a lab worker or a
lab technician, so and they
were warned about the whole
thing and about how the work
was, so that if anything else
happened it would be a treat.
Interviewer: So that’s just general day-today
stuff that you’d be doing
all the time, kind of thing?
Alan: Yes. Digging holes and
getting rocks and that kind of
stuff. And generally the IQs of the students were high
enough to pick up everything
they needed within a couple
of weeks and apply
themselves or not.
If the students showed aptitude, they were given the opportunity to go into project work, once they had gained skills in routine work. For example, Nigel an employer from a New Zealand analytical chemical laboratory stated, “they do a lot of routine work, they are trained in the laboratory getting used to what we are doing and then if they are suitable and committed we give them some sort of project to do,” and Tom a UK employer of chemistry students said “at the start they do routine work and when they go into an area, we expect them to do commercial work, and than we say this month we need you to be given time for this project.” These projects represented normal business activity for the company, as seen in Karen’s comment that “yes we normally give them a project, but it is a project which is one of the department’s projects, it’s just that it is given to the student, it is their baby if you like.”
Most of the employers used international co-ops for
regular projects and the students joined an established
team immediately. As Sam described it:
The way we have used the [international]
students over the last few years has been on
on-going reoccurring projects. Over the
years it has become less common for them
to have a specific project they would be
involved in the project that we are doing.
There have been times when students have
been here and a particular project has come
up during the year and that has occupied
them for three or four months and if it’s
come up and it’s appropriate for them to do
we will consider them as a resource.
The nature of the co-op placement process means
that there are opportunities for mismatch between
student/institutional expectations and employer
expectations. This potential difficulty was addressed
by the employers providing detailed explanations of
the work to be undertaken during telephone
interviews, with Sam pointing out:
When I speak to the student on the phone for
the first time I say is this the type of work
you are looking for, would you be happy
doing this? I don’t think over time we have
ever had a student come back and say this is
not the sort of work I thought I would be
doing, or I am not enjoying this, I am not
happy with the work I am doing.
Confirming a match of student-employer
expectations was typically established early on, well before placements occurred with Nigel saying “it was
made pretty clear before they started what we were
able to offer and we knew what the university
wanted,” and Karen stating:
What we try and do when we have
the interviews is make sure the
student’s expectation what they are
coming to do matches with what we
want them to do. The nature of the
work we are doing here is analytical
chemistry and so I think it matches
quite well with the experience the
student hopes to get.
The international co-ops had the requisite
practical and theoretical skills, mostly
described as being similar to local students at
the same stage of their education. Alan said
“it’s about the same,” and Nigel commented
“I would rate the practical skills of the
international students [in this instance, USA
students] as slightly above average, compared
with locals.” Differences that existed in
perceptions of skill level were because of
differences in level of academic experience
between locals and international students.
For example, Tom a New Zealand employer
taking on UK students in their second year
said “they are only a second year student so
we class them as a technical assistant doing
more routine work. A local student is placed
as a technician because they are third year
students so we move them up a bit.” Tom
nonetheless, went on to say that his
international co-ops were “pretty bright and I
think their theoretical skills have been pretty
good, they are well on a standard as ours.”
Karen a UK employer further illustrated the
issue; in her case the New Zealand third-year
international students were more experienced
that her usual UK students who were
typically second years:
One difference certainly between
New Zealand and UK students is
that having completed three years,
the New Zealanders have covered a
wider range of subjects and their
knowledge skills are generally
higher. I don’t think it is a capability
thing; it is just that stage of their
education.
Sam commented likewise, that international co-ops practical and theoretical skills were “very good, they have been very good at thinking ways around a problem and coming up with ideas.”
These interview data were supported by documentary evidence in terms of student placement reports. Examination of these documents showed that the views expressed by the students were in close agreement with the views expressed by the employers above. In all reports, the students were required to set placement objectives and - at the end of the placement - to reflect on these objectives. The student objectives, and reflections of performance in meeting the objectives, showed that the students were clear on their roles in the employing organization. The placement reports also described in detail the work undertaken by the international co-ops. This work took the form of specific scientific projects such as method development for chemical analyses of environmental pollutants, development of skills in operation and maintenance of scientific apparatus and instrumentation and understating of whole project ideas involving time management, planning for research projects and other highlevel skills. It also was evident from the documents that the students valued these skills obtained during their placements and felt that their contribution to the company was valued. For example, the students were given increased responsibility as they matured into their roles and involved things such as customer liaison and the like. The level of responsibility given to students was impressive in some case with one student charged with site evaluation for a major site redevelopment with a environmental consultancy company in the UK another charged with training of company staff in chemical occupational and safety procedures.
There was high commonality about what the employers from quite diverse contexts, and undertaking diverse business activities, perceived as the most important advantages and disadvantages of taking on international co-ops.
The employers identified two main advantages of employing international co-ops: timing or duration of placements, and the enthusiasm and different perspective the international co-ops provided. A number of placements occurred as a result of serendipity in that a research group obtained funding for a specific project (either within the organization or from an external contract) and sought temporary staffing via contact with their local placement coordinator. For example, Jack said “it was the right place at the right time. He was the one that was available. Typically local students are only available at the end of the year. So yes, it was timing at that stage,” and Alan likewise said, “we had the project money committed and we needed to find somebody.” Hence, the availability of international co-ops was important for one-off projects; however, for employers that had been involved with international co-ops for a number of years, this introduced a complication in that they became locked into the timing of the overseas educational institution if they subsequently stopped taking on local students.
Karen’s comments illustrate this issue:
I think that it is now force of habit. I mean
when we first started the program we had
just one student that came over from New
Zealand to work on a specific project. And
it has always been so successful that we
haven’t changed it. I think it is reasonably
convenient. The thing is that we are stuck in
a cycle now. If we decide to switch from
the overseas co-op students to UK students,
we would have a six-month gap with the
difference in academic years.
The duration of the placement (typically 12 months for international co-ops) was seen as advantageous as seen in Tom’s comment “it takes three months to get someone up to speed and then you are turning them over. So 12 months means you’ve got nine months and that’s more than we would normally have,” Karen’s view that “the first month is spent getting to know the department, getting to know the work here. A six or nine month placement then, you know, they’d only really be getting into the swing of things before they’d have to leave,” and similar sentiments expressed by Sam “they get some training, they get some understanding of the equipment where we are working, then we only have to go through that process once every 12 months. If we were taking a local student [i.e., a UK student] for say a four six or month placement, then we’d have to go through that process again and again.”
Enthusiasm seems a major factor in employers with a long history of international co-ops. Karen said “they come with a slightly different attitude to the UK students. Because they are away from home, they have made a big commitment coming overseas and the type of student that does that has a more enthusiastic approach,” and Alan stating “enthusiasm and perspective. It adds a little bit of a different flavor into our team. It makes people have another look at their role, or they way they work and whether or not it is fun. It is a novelty to them, being in New Zealand.” Other employers expressed similar sentiments with New Zealand employers in particular keen to obtain international perspective in their area, with Jack, for example, stating, “getting students from large industrial countries [the USA in this instance] meant he probably had the opportunity to get exposure from segments of the industry.” Nigel saw advantages in terms of personal development of local staff; “the sharing of knowledge, using knowledge day-to-day, that is good as well. New Zealand is relatively isolated its useful to see how things are done differently overseas. It is important to develop individuals, not just on a technical or professional basis, but also on a more personal level. That way people become of more value for companies like this.”
The employers did encounter some problems as a result of employing international co-ops. These consisted of the fact that, unlike local students, the employers were unable to keep the international coops on at the end of their placements. Nigel commented “its is not really an expectation for us to keep on an international student at the end of their placement, but after 12 months there is no way we can re-employ them if we wanted to into a fixed term or permanent position,” and Tom said “it’s neither here nor there, but two years would be better, the fact that we don’t have that opportunity is a disadvantage.”
There were also some individual difficulties
associated with specific students, for example, Nigel
reported that some students “were homesick and if
you have someone working for you who is not very
happy and wants to go home,” and Tom reported:
We’ve had the occasional problem with
work ethic, but we quickly get on top of that
now, they are not used to regulation and we
try not to treat them like children and be
over prescriptive, but people need to get that
work ethic going pretty quickly because it
won’t be tolerated for long because it
actually impacts upon the rest of the
organization.
Other difficulties were more pragmatic with Sam pointing out “there is a lot more paperwork with overseas students. There is a lot of paperwork with taking on any students, but there is an added hurdle if you like with the work permits.”
The employers chose to be involved in international
co-op placements for the pragmatic advantages
identified above. However, many of the employers
saw no clear tangible benefit for their organization
compared with taking on local co-ops. Interestingly,
the employers expressed a mixture of altruistic and
pragmatic reasons for their involvement. This mostly
consisted of strengthening links with local tertiary institutions and a commitment to education of
students as seen in Alan’s comment:
Co-op students are good to employ
after graduation and they get an even
better work placement if they go
overseas because you get different
experience and exposure to different
things. But if we expect New Zealand
students to be able to turn up to our
company for permanent positions with
international experience, then we would
hope that companies, similar companies
to us, would have similar attitudes and
take on students for international
placements.
Other employers expressed similar sentiments with
Tom saying:
The main reason we are doing it is
for the relationship with the
university the partnership. The local
placement coordinator needed
somewhere to place someone from
overseas and we thought, yes we
could get that to work. It’s not ideal
for us, but we still get some benefit
and the university benefits too.
Nigel likewise commented, “I think the main reason is the relationship with the university that is very important to us. The university is a source of labor and as such I think it is good to have strong relationships between the university and our company.”
The employers involved in this study took on international co-ops for placements for pragmatic reasons, not dissimilar to the reasons they employed local co-ops. Timing and duration of placements for international co-ops provides some advantages in some instances, in that they were available at a time when local co-ops were not. The students employed in these international exchange arrangements possessed the skills desired by their employers and were employed in similar capacity to local students, namely for routine work, or specific projects, fixedterm or on-going. The longer duration placements typical of these international placements was also seen to be advantageous given long induction times common in science and technology placements. The most striking advantage reported was the enthusiasm the students brought to the workplace. The employers felt the fact that these students took the risk of traveling great distances provided strong indicators of their commitment and this was borne out in their ‘can do’ enthusiastic attitude in the work place. The other advantage reported was the new perspective the international co-ops bring to the work place.
Leary (1999) suggests that co-op employers often take on students to support the educational needs of their region. Interestingly, this was borne out in the present work, despite the fact that the students came from overseas. The companies saw a need for local employers to support the co-op programs in their area and this extended to support of international co-op exchange arrangements. This, it appears, is part of a holistic employment and recruitment strategy by these employers. Lack of support was perceived to endanger local co-op programs and potential graduate recruitment. Thus, the employers chose to be involved in international for both pragmatic and altruistic reasons.
The disadvantages of employing international co-ops identified were surprisingly few. A few students were deemed to perform less than adequately. The main issue was that and there is increased administration associated with taking on someone from overseas. Two of the employers pointed out that it would be advantageous to be able to keep students on at the end of their placement, and option not generally available to international co-ops.
The employers in this study represented those organizations that had employed few international co-ops and those who had employed many over lengthy periods of time. The research findings provide some insights into reasons why a given employer took on international co-ops. This has implications for co-op practice and, for example, helps co-op placement coordinators wanting to induct promote international co-op. So international co-op has similar advantages to those reported for local coop; namely, a source of partially skilled, motivated labor (Coll & Chapman, 2001; De Lange, 2002), students or trainees that fit into an organization and come up to speed rapidly (Göhringer, 2002), better career advancement and value to the company (Calway & Murphy, 2000), and so, and so on. Pratt (1996) points out that we need to convince employers why they should take students and support our subjective views and anecdotes with hard data. The research findings here, whilst a case study and highly contextualized, nonetheless provide some research data that coordinators can use to explain to prospective employers why other employers across the world took on international co-ops. There has been much rhetoric in the literature about the importance of internationalization and much talk about the importance of the global economy (see, e.g., De Lange, 1999; Srisa-an, 2002). Likewise, there have been claims that international co-op helps students (and thus presumably graduates) improve communication skills (Gunn, 2001), and language skills (Hodges et al., 2001) and develop better graduate competencies (Benito, 2001). Whether or not one ascribes to such views about the inevitability of globalization, it does seem inevitable that future employees will increasingly come into contact with other cultures, business or otherwise (Ormsby, 1989; Reeves, 2001). Mehta (1999) rightly points to the increasing importance of Asia in an era of increasing globalization and Langford (1994) maintains that more cultural experience in the workplace helps break down stenotypes and produces staff and graduates with a more global perspective. In such a climate employers need to have recruitment strategies that help local employees gain broader experiences and perspectives. The research reported here along with other related work (e.g., Reeves, 2001) provides co-op practitioners with some tools to help encourage employers into international co-op.
The research reported here relates to science and technology co-op programs. It would be interesting to embark upon an investigation of international exchange for other subjects such as business studies, nursing or hospitality to name a few. These subjects likely have different needs and an investigation into the success or otherwise of such international co-op exchange arrangements would be of value.