Derek at Schmieding Produce
Author: Derek Mitchell | Majors: Marketing and Supply Chain Management | Semester: Spring 2022
Over the course of the 2022 spring grant term, I worked with my honors mentor, Dr. Donnie Williams, a supply chain management clinical assistant professor and director of the Supply Chain Management Research Center, conducting an ethnographic case study over my logistics internship with Schmieding Produce. My goal of the research was to identify the elements of an internship program that were key in creating meaningful, beneficial opportunities for students, creates a talent pipeline for companies, and establishes experiential education opportunities for academic institutions through the evaluation of my internship.
After brief discussions with Dr. Williams in the fall, we decided to conduct an ethnographic case study on my internship because of my unique relationship to the program and the company had assigned the interns to its largest account which was interesting. From here I began to design interview questions for 15 selected individuals that were in contact with and impacted by the internship program to varying degrees. Individuals were selected based on their personal involvement with the internship program varying from very little to heavily involved day to day. In addition to the interviews, I was embedded within the company as an intern for one year which allowed for me to fill in potential holes in interviews and connect interviews while providing my own experience.
Throughout the interviews and my experience, I found that each aspect of an internship program is uniquely important. The business strategy is critical to the formation of the rest of the internship program. Valuable insights can be drawn from this case despite the business strategy because of the uniqueness of the aspects. Overall, I found the structure, the types of interns, and the training to be the most important aspects of an internship. The structure of the internship is essential to interns feeling supported and productivity is likely to increase. By having a clear, determined structure with positions including a dedicated intern manager and mentors for each intern as well as taking part in company meetings, this will help the interns develop and grow both personally and professionally which will benefit themselves and the company. A key intern quality and type that is desired for supply chain internships was tenacity or being driven and taking initiative. Although this trait can be innate for some people, it also can be developed which is why the implementation of a strong structure is important. Additionally, the ability to communicate is a key quality in a supply chain internship due to the moving parts of a supply chain. In the Schmieding internship, students were able to develop this skill regardless of if they were skilled in communication before the internship. Training can impact the entire internship program either very positively or very negatively. To be effective, training must be focused on the pertinent aspects of the internship. Training should be done through a variety of methods throughout the training process to reinforce the material necessary to be successful in the position. Some of these methods can include job shadowing, videos, articles, a ‘classroom’ environment, or any other training method that is effective.
Depending on company and assigned work, internship programs can affect multiple areas of the company. In my case, every aspect of the company including Schmieding Produce’s customers were directly affected by the internship program. This stresses the importance of having a strong internship program in order to positively affect other parts of the company.
Dr. Williams was a great advisor and was able to help with every step of the research and writing process. He was able to help me understand the different methods of research possible and the pros and cons of each. Although there is limited work on internships, this research can serve as a base for future research to be conducted on internship models. There is an increasing need for this research because of the ever-increasing demand for internships and work experience, especially in the supply chain industry. At this point I have finished writing my thesis and will seek to begin the publication process for a supply chain practitioner journal in the fall of 2022.