Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 35, No. 3, pp.

690–711, 2008
0160-7383/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Printed in Great Britain
www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures
doi:10.1016/j.annals.2008.05.003

EDUCATIONAL TRAVEL
The Overseas Internship
Erik van ‘t Klooster
Jeroen van Wijk
Frank Go
Johan van Rekom
Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract: An important objective of educational travel programs is to teach students how to

bridge cultural distance. Research remains inconclusive to what extent and under what cir-
cumstances students actually learn from educational travel experiences. This paper examines
the influence of cultural distance on the perceived learning effects of the overseas internship,
specifically cross-cultural competencies and management skills. It is shown that asymmetric
cultural distance and psychic distance have a negative relationship with the perceived learn-
ing of management skills and interaction with locals. Students traveling to low-income coun-
tries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia in particular tend to face difficulties. Keywords:
educational travel, cultural distance, overseas internship, management skills, cross-cultural
competencies. Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION
Whilst information and communication technologies connect peo-
ple at different ends of the globe for sharing knowledge, this develop-
ment has not stopped people from traveling (Go and van Fenema
2006). On the contrary, the entire world seems to be on the move:
tourists, business(wo)men, international students, expatriates, emi-
grants, refugees, and many others. The scale and scope of traveling
has increased dramatically over the past century. ‘‘Internationally there
are over 700 million legal passengers arrivals each year (compared with
25 million in 1950) with a predicted 1 billion by 2010’’ (Sheller and
Urry 2006:207).
From a sociological point of view, international business is an
important driver of interaction between societies around the world.
Historically these societies have developed different cultures, consist-
ing of shared behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols, to deal with the
problems of external adaptation and internal integration (Schneider

The authors are affiliated with the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University,
Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Erik van ‘t Klooster (e-mail<eklooster@rsm.nl>) is Ph.D
candidate at the Centre for Tourism Management. Jeroen van Wijk is assistant professor of
Business-Society Management. Frank Go serves as professor of Tourism Marketing and
director of the Centre for Tourism Management. Johan van Rekom is assistant professor of
Marketing.

690
 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711 691

and Barsoux 1997). An important determinant for cultural diversity

around the world is the difference in economic development.
Although cultural change is path dependent on broad cultural heri-
tage, economic development triggers a shift in norms and values. Ingle-
hart and Baker (2000) have shown that cultural values shift from
‘traditional’ to ‘secular’ when the economy develops from an agrarian
into an industrial society. Traditional values, linked to pre-industrial
societies include relatively low levels of tolerance for abortion, divorce,
and homosexuality, tend to emphasize male dominance in economic
and political life, deference to parental authority, and the importance
of family life, and are relatively authoritarian; most of them place
strong emphasis on religion. When the economy develops further into
a post-industrial society, cultural values shift further from survival to
self-expression which embraces general trust, tolerance, subjective
well-being, and political activism.
Multinational companies have to cope with many cross-cultural issues
that arise from the multiculturalism of their staff. Although corporate
culture, rules and regulations provide employees with a sense of com-
mon understanding, project outcomes can be severely affected by the
lack of skills to deal with culture-related misunderstanding (Schneider
and Barsoux 1997). A lack of insight in the diversity of values and
demeanors among employees can bring about interpersonal distrust
and slow down the coordination of tasks (Hambrick, Davidson, Snell
and Snow 1998). Such insights hold important lessons for mobile
knowledge workers. They must not only learn how to interact with peo-
ple from other cultures but also understand how culture impacts on
management within organizations.
From a network perspective, corporate scandals and the increased
capacity of both consumers and civil society organizations to target cor-
porate reputation have induced international managers to enter into
strategic dialogues with stakeholders to build a common ground for fu-
ture actions (van Tulder and van der Zwart 2006). This requires man-
agers to be able to cope with uncertainty, communicate effectively and
understand widely different perceptions on values, economics, politics,
and society. Managers acquire these competencies partly while study-
ing from social institutions or media images, but direct cultural expe-
rience in the market is key (Burns, Myers and Kakabadse 1995;
Zaidman 2000).
For this reason, educational institutions, companies, government,
non-profits and intermediaries have been supporting students to en-
hance their cross-cultural competencies by traveling abroad. Whereas
the tourism industry is still ‘‘unaware of the true size of this market seg-
ment’’ (Ritchie, Carr and Cooper 2003: 1), worldwide, more than 1.5
million students studied abroad in 2003 and their number is growing
(UNESCO 2004). AIESEC, the world’s largest overseas internship inter-
mediary, reports an impressive growth: from 1000 international intern-
ships in 1998 to 4342 in 2005 (AIESEC, personal communication). The
actual learning effects of educational travel are under-researched, how-
ever. Only a few empirical studies have examined the actual learning
effects and their antecedents (Litvin 2003). This paper therefore seeks
692 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711

to address this knowledge gap by focusing on the influence of cultural

distance on learning effects of overseas internships.

EDUCATIONAL TRAVEL
By combining studying and traveling, present-day students follow an
age-old trajectory. Early biblical references speak of traveling scholars,
and cross-cultural education can be traced back to the reign of Asoka
the Great of India, which occurred in the second century BC, and the
establishment of the University of Taxila in what now is Pakistan
(Ward, Bochner and Furnham 2001). In Europe, between the six-
teenth and eighteenth centuries, scholars and artists travelled to meet
influential peers and experience other cultures (Maczak 1995). Also,
the European upper-classes sent their sons on the Grand Tour to major
cities as part of their educational scheme (Brodsky-Porges 1981; Town-
er 1985). Nowadays, students can opt for different forms of educational
travel, ranging from field trips, exchanges, international research pro-
jects and international internships. The cross-cultural learning poten-
tial of these forms of travel depends on the context. Pizam, Milman
and Jafari (1991) mention three factors which enhance cross-cultural
learning: interaction with local people, equal status between host
and guest, and the shock of crossing cultural borders. Significant learn-
ing can only exist when unlearning takes place, which often happens
when one experiences severe or long periods of what Hottola (2004)
calls ‘culture confusion’, the mental confusion resulting from differ-
ences in values, behaviour, political perceptions, and ecology. When
educational travel participants primarily engage in escorted bus tours
or familiar social networks they hardly escape from their cultural ‘bub-
ble’ and they might learn only little (Pizam 1996). However, the over-
seas internship is a form of educational travel that holds more
potential for cross-cultural learning.
An internship is a student’s closely monitored, paid or unpaid work
experience at a corporation or non-profit organization. Such an expe-
rience offers students opportunities for socializing into the manage-
ment profession and tackling ‘‘real world’’ challenges which
organizations face. Overseas internships have the additional advantage
of enabling students to live and work side-by-side with people of the
host country, and to get to know values, customs, and worldviews in
other regions of the world (van Wijk, Go, van ‘t Klooster forthcoming).
Interns typically operate on an independent basis in a real work envi-
ronment. From a business perspective the student gains insight in
the practice of international marketing, in terms of institutional differ-
ences, economic performance and consumer behavior (Toncar and
Cudmore 2000). Of course, the overseas internship also offers students
an exotic tourist experience in which they can realize their need for
recreation or diversion. Finally, it provides students, what Cohen
(1979) called a peek into the ‘back’ regions of the host society thereby
facilitating experiential, experimental or even existential modes of
tourist experiences. Empirical research on the precise effects of over-
 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711 693

seas internships is lacking (Feldman, Folks and Turnley 1998), but a

recent study indicates that overseas internships produce better learn-
ing outcomes than study exchanges and national internships in terms
of foreign language skills, cultural empathy, self-efficacy and intercul-
tural competencies (Stronkhorst 2005).

Learning Effects
The assumption that travel results in more cross-cultural understand-
ing is rooted in social contact theory. In studying inter-racial relations,
social psychologists find that inter-group contacts, i.e. face-to-face inter-
action between members of clearly different groups, reduce prejudices,
although not under all conditions (Pettigrew 1998). Carlson and Wid-
aman (1988) found that studying and living abroad leads to height-
ened levels of international understanding. Their research involved
over 800 American college students of which 304 studied abroad at a
European university during their junior year, while 519 remained on
the campus. The study abroad group showed higher levels of interna-
tional political concern, cross-cultural interest, and cultural cosmopol-
itanism than those who did not. Similarly, Hansel (1988) compared
cross-cultural learning between AFS exchange students and students
who stayed at home. The research shows that AFS exchange students
learned more about the host country and other cultures; became more
aware of international issues and gained more appreciation of foreign
language ability. The exchange students also appeared to become less
materialistic, more adaptable, more independent in their thinking,
more aware of their home country and culture, and better able to com-
municate with others.
A study by Stitsworth (1988) found that American teenage students
who participated in a one-month home-stay program in Japan became
more independent, flexible, and open towards unconventional ways of
living. The learning effects were in particular significant for those who
had no previous travel abroad experience, didn’t study a foreign lan-
guage or whose family didn’t have travel abroad experience.
However, not all research on educational travel outcomes share
these positive results. A literature review on tourism and understanding
(Litvin 2000, 2003) shows that researchers report widely different
effects of tourist contact on intercultural understanding. Some find
minor positive changes in attitudes, some none at all and others even
find negative changes. For example, Var, Schlutter, Ankomah and Lee
(1989) found no significant differences between students with tourism
work experience and those without, with regard to the perceived im-
pact of tourism on economics, physical environment, social environ-
ment, and cross-cultural understanding. Similarly, Gmelch (1997)
followed 51 American students who travelled through Europe in
1993, and found little impact on their cognitive development, i.e.
the acquisition of knowledge about European cultures. If positive atti-
tudinal changes are found this could mean that cultural awareness is
increased but such a single dimensional approach doesn’t necessarily
694 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711

imply cross-cultural understanding (Schuster, Zimmerman, Schertzer

and Beamish 1998).
The transitional experience encompasses a movement from a state
of low self- and cultural awareness to a state of high self- and cultural
awareness and the development of competencies to deal with the
new environment (Adler 1975). In the main, students learn two types
of competencies during an overseas internship: cross-cultural compe-
tencies and management skills. Cross-cultural competencies can be de-
fined as ‘‘the individual’s effectiveness in drawing upon a set of
knowledge, skills, and personal attributes in order to work successfully
with people from different national cultural backgrounds at home or
abroad’’ (Johnson, Lenartowicz and Apud 2006:6). Black and Menden-
hall (1990) offer a taxonomy of cross-cultural competencies, along
three dimensions: self-maintenance, relationship and perceptual.
The self-maintenance dimension refers to the capability of substituting
sources of reinforcement in order to manage stress and deal with obsta-
cles, and the readiness and confidence for such self-management. Such
stress is not only caused by differences in social institutions and values.
Street life scenes depicting extremely poor, sick or disabled people may
cause a shock, especially to interns from Western societies who are nor-
mally shielded from direct exposure to the less desirable facts of hu-
man life by social security and state institutions (Hottola 2004).
Ecological conditions may also require time to cope with, for example,
exposure to significant differences in temperature, humidity, height
and air pollution. Second, the cross-cultural relationship dimension in-
volves the willingness and capability to foster and maintain interper-
sonal relationships with members of a host culture, and to effectively
deal with diverse communication styles, social customs, and the feel-
ings of another person. Finally, the perceptual dimension concerns
the mental capacity to interpret and understand the behavior of cultur-
ally different others (Black and Mendenhall 1990). Leiba-O’Sullivan
(1999) added a distinction between stable, i.e. untrainable and dy-
namic or trainable competencies. The present paper focuses on the
latter.
Next to acquiring new competencies, the main reason for business
students to opt for an internship is the learning of management skills.
Of increasing importance to managers is the mastering of refined com-
munication skills (Whetten, Cameron and Woods 2000) and ‘‘tacit
interactions’’ (Beardsley, Johnson and Manyika 2006). The latter is
characterized by a complex, uncertain transfer of tacit knowledge, com-
plicated by differences in experience, beliefs, context, and skills. The
sense of urgency for current and future knowledge workers to put more
emphasis on developing refined communication and tacit knowledge
skills is twofold. First of all, tacit interactions are becoming more valu-
able as a source of competitiveness as transactions are increasingly dealt
with by ICT. Second, global migration patterns increase cultural diver-
sity in local spaces (Go & Van Fenema 2006). Whetten et al (2000)
distinguish between three types of management skills: Intrapersonal
skills (developing self-awareness, time management skills and problem
solving skills); Interpersonal skills (verbal communication; motivation
 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711 695

and work performance and conflict management); People manage-

ment (empowerment and delegation).

Cultural Distance
The phenomenon of culture can be approached from three domi-
nant perspectives: postmodernist, particularist and dimensionalist.
The latter is often used by social scientists given their practical dimen-
sional frameworks. The leading figures of the dimensionalist perspec-
tive are Hofstede, Triandis, Schwartz and Inglehart (Vinken, Soeters
and Ester 2004). They explain cultural variation across the world along
a set of ultimate value dimensions. The dimensions enabled the mea-
suring of differences in cultural values and led to the introduction of
the concept of cultural distance (Babiker, Cox and Miller 1980), de-
fined as the extent to which national cultures differ from the hosts’ cul-
tures. Cultural distance has often been measured in the form of an
index compiled by Kogut and Singh (1988) from Hofstede’s cultural
dimensions (Shenkar 2001). Hofstede used a factor analysis to classify
data from IBM work value survey among 40 countries along four
dimensions: power distance, individualism, masculinity and uncer-
tainty reduction. Power distance is defined as ‘the extent to which a
society accepts the fact that power in institutions and organizations is
distributed unequally’. Individualism can be defined as to what extent
relationships between individuals in a society are loose. On the other
hand, collectivism is the degree to which individuals are integrated into
groups. Masculinity is defined as ‘the extent to which the dominant val-
ues in society are ‘‘masculine’’ – that is, assertiveness, the acquisition of
money and things, and not caring for others, the quality of life, or peo-
ple’. Uncertainty avoidance is defined as ‘the extent to which a society
feels threatened by uncertain and ambiguous situations and tries to
avoid these situations by providing greater career stability, establishing
more formal rules, not tolerating deviant ideas and behaviors, and
believing in absolute truths and the attainment of expertise’ (Hofstede
2003).
Mathematically, the Kogut and Singh index is calculated as follows:
X
4
CD ¼ fðI ihost  I ihome Þ2 =V i g=4
i¼1

where:

CD = cultural distance
Iihost = index of the ith cultural dimension and the host country
Iihome = index of the ith cultural dimension and the home country
Vi = variance of the index of the ith dimension

On the individual level, it is theoretically assumed that cultural

distance has a negative relationship with the development of
cross-cultural competencies (Johnson et al 2006; Ward et al 2001).
696 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711

Great differences in cultural values, language, economic, political and

legal systems may constitute a barrier to effectively communicate with
people from the host country and learn significant management skills.
This leads us to hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis 1.
Cultural distance is negatively related to the perceived learning of man-
agement skills.

Hypothesis 2.
Cultural distance is negatively related to the perceived learning of cross-
cultural competences.

Lately, the measuring of cultural distance by the Kogut & Singh for-
mula has been criticized (see e.g. Chirkov, Lynch and Niwa 2005;
Magala 2006; Shenkar 2001). One of the critiques is the illusion of sym-
metry that the metaphor of distance creates. For example, a study by
Selmer, Chiu and Shenkar (2006) found that German expatriates were
better adjusted to the USA than American expatriates in Germany. In
the context of the overseas internship it is unlikely that, for example, a
Danish student interning in Vietnam will experience the same kind of
cultural distance as his Vietnamese counterpart interning in Denmark,
due to the increase in power distance in the first case and a decrease in
the second case.
Research by Feldman et al (1998) on overseas internship job factors
showed that job autonomy and access to senior colleagues are posi-
tively related to work performance and socialization in the group. Tak-
ing into account these conditions, our asymmetry thesis is that interns
will learn fewer management skills when they work in host societies
with higher power distance, more uncertainty avoidance and ones
which are more masculine. We also assume that students operating
in more individualistic societies tend to have more decision power
and are given more opportunities for learning, rendering them more
capable of absorbing management skills. With regard to cross-cultural
competences, we expect that interaction between interns and locals
will be more difficult when they work in societies where power distance,
uncertainty avoidance and masculinity are higher then they are used
to. A higher level of individualism is expected to foster open interac-
tion between people from different backgrounds, which enables in-
terns to learn more cross-cultural competencies.

Hypothesis 3.
Power distance increase is negatively related to the perceived learning of
management skills.

Hypothesis 4.
Individualism increase is positively related to the perceived learning of
management skills.
 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711 697

Hypothesis 5.
Masculinity increase is negatively related to the perceived learning of
management skills.

Hypothesis 6.
Uncertainty avoidance increase is negatively related to the perceived
learning of management skills.

Hypothesis 7.
Power distance increase is negatively related to the perceived learning of
cross-cultural competencies.

Hypothesis 8.
Individualism increase is positively related to the perceived learning of
cross-cultural competencies.

Hypothesis 9.
Masculinity increase is negatively related to the perceived learning of
cross-cultural competencies.

Hypothesis 10.
Uncertainty avoidance increase is negatively related to the perceived
learning of cross-cultural competencies.

Another weakness of the cultural distance concept is the suggestion

of cultural homogeneity in a country. It implies an attitude, which
underestimates the potential differences between ethnic, regional or
social groups (Chirkov et al 2005; Kirkman, Lowe and Gibson 2006).
Hofstede has also warned against applying country level cultural values
at the individual level (Hofstede 2003). Still, many studies have used
the dimensional model at the individual level. Since this approach
has produced contradictory results, it has been argued that researchers
should apply models that recognize the characteristics of specific pop-
ulations in a country (Kirkman et al 2006). It is more likely that differ-
ences between countries stem from individuals’ perceptions of a
foreign country’s general values and attitudes, often referred to as psy-
chic distance. Psychic distance is defined as ‘‘the distance between the
home market and a foreign market resulting from the perception and
understanding of cultural and business differences’’ (Evans, Treadgold
and Mavondo 2000:377). In this paper, psychic distance is measured by
using the dimensional value model of Inglehart & Baker (2000), as this
model is more dynamic and more general than the relatively static
work-sphere related Hofstede dimensions (Vinken et al 2004). Follow-
ing these observations two hypotheses can be added:

Hypothesis 11.
Psychic distance is negatively related to the perceived learning of manage-
ment skills.
698 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711

Hypothesis 12.
Psychic distance is negatively related to the perceived learning of cross-
cultural competences.

In summary, our hypotheses are presented in Figure 1.

Study Methods
Empirical data was gathered through an online survey at the AIESEC
website among 3000 alumni in the period June-August 2005 from all
around the world. The survey was pre-tested by 12 respondents. A total
of 1280 responses were returned of which 967 were completed suffi-
ciently in order to be used to answer questions related to our cultural
distance hypotheses.
Our sample consisted of 501 female and 466 males, who fulfilled
their internship in the period 1996-2005. With regard to the types of
organizations that interns worked for, companies accounted for 70.5
per cent. The remaining existed of educational institutes (11.2%), gov-
ernment institutions (3.1%) and NGOs (15.2%). Forty per cent of our
sample comes from one of the following home countries: Germany
(115), Poland (73), United States (57), Netherlands (56), Colombia
(32), Canada (31), Romania (30), Mexico (29), Czech Republic (28),
Turkey (27), India (27), Brazil (26), Finland (21), and Australia
(20). Similarly, forty per cent of our population resided in one of
the following internship countries: India (174), Germany (85), Poland
(62), Turkey (55), United States (35), Czech Republic (25), Nether-
lands (24), Italy (21) and Canada (19), Brazil (18), Hungary (18),
Japan (16), Colombia (16), and Ukraine (16).
We developed our own survey questions for the measurement of the
perceived learning effects, based on the work of Whetten et al (2000),
Leiba-O’Sullivan (1999) and Hottola (2004), using a seven- point scale
(van Herk, Poortinga and Verhallen 2004). Cultural distance asymme-
try was measured by subtracting the home country Hofstede values
from the host-country Hofstede values, for each dimension. The psy-

Cultural distance -

Pdi increase -
+ Learning effects
Idv increase 1. Cross cultural
- competencies
Mas increase
- 2. Management skills
Uai increase

Psychic distance -

Figure 1. Conceptual model

 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711 699

chic distance questions were selected from the 1999-2002 world values
survey that refer to the ten items that tap the traditional versus secular-
rational dimension and the survival versus self-expression dimension
(Inglehart and Baker 2000:24). The items in the traditional versus sec-
ular-rational dimension measure the value perceptions of the impor-
tance of god, child upbringing, abortion, national pride, and respect
for authority. The items in the survival versus self-expression dimen-
sion measures the value perceptions of job factors, happiness, willing-
ness to sign a petition, homosexuality and trusting people. At the end
of the survey we asked students to optionally fill out a box in which they
could write down comments. The specific question was: ‘‘Please feel
free to write down additional comments and recommendations with re-
gard to your internship experience’’.
In mathematical terms psychic distance was operationalized accord-
ing to the Kogut and Singh index. Two of Inglehart & Baker’s cultural
dimension items were measured with multiple questions, namely ‘‘qual-
ities that children can be encouraged to learn at home’’ (child upbring-
ing) and ‘‘aspects of a job that people say are important’’ (job factors).
The alpha’s for ‘‘qualities that children can be encouraged to learn at
home’’ were 0.81 (home) and 0.68 (host). The alpha’s for ‘‘aspects of
a job that people say are important’’ were 0.78 (home) and 0.83 (host).
In order to make our psychic distance findings more concrete we
examined what specific travel trajectories produced high psychic dis-
tance. Following Inglehart and Baker’s thesis that cultural value are
linked to economic development we used World Bank data to cluster
our data in four economic zones: low-income economies (LIC), $825
GNI per capita or less; lower-middle-income economies (LMC),
$826–3,255; upper-middle-income economies (UMC), $3,256–10,065;
and high-income economies, $10,066 or more (World Bank 2005:
291). In our sample low-income economies include Afghanistan, Ban-
gladesh, Cameroon, Cote D-Ivoire, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Tan-
zania, Togo and Uganda. Lower-middle-income economies include
Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Domin-
ican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia,
Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Morocco, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Serbia
and Ukraine. Upper-middle-income economies include Argentina,
Botswana, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hun-
gary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Slovakia,
South Africa, Turkey and Venezuela. High income countries include
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Ger-
many, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea,
Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Slove-
nia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United
States, United Arab Emirates.

Findings
Although this study lacks a control group, the perceived learning
effects seem to confirm previous theoretical arguments and empirical
700 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711

Table 1. Perceived learning of management skills and cross cultural competencies

Management skills (N = 967) Dimension Meana Standard

deviation

The internship taught me about the study Discipline 3.96 2.00

discipline that I specialize in.
The internship increased my self- Intrapersonal 5.92 1.28
awareness.
The internship increased my time Intrapersonal 4.33 1.88
management skills.
The internship increased my problem Intrapersonal 5.24 1.57
solving skills.
The internship increased my verbal Interpersonal 5.59 1.55
communication skills with co-workers.
The internship taught me how to motivate People management 5.15 1.68
myself.
The internship taught me how to motivate People management 4.15 1.86
other co-workers.
The internship taught me to delegate tasks People management 3.46 1.92
to co-workers.
Cross cultural competencies (N = 949)
During my internship I learned much more Self-maintenance 5.60 1.48
about the formal socio-economic and
political institutions of the host country.
Towards the end of the internship I had Self-maintenance 6.19 1.13
adjusted quite well to the street life of my
host country.
Towards the end of the internship I had Self-maintenance 6.14 1.18
become sufficiently adjusted to the
ecological conditions (temperature,
humidity, pollution) of the host country.
Towards the end of my internship I felt I Relationship 5.87 1.17
had adjusted to the different
communication style of my colleagues
Toward the end of my internship I was able Relationship 5.03 1.49
to apply local conflict-resolution
strategies.
Towards the end of my internship the Relationship 3.03 2.01
difference in language still seriously
hindered my performance in my
internship organization.
Towards the end of my internship I Relationship 5.59 1.56
managed to communicate with local
people in a satisfactory way.
Towards the end of the internship, I Perceptual 5.36 1.36
understood the dominant view in the
host country on international political
controversies.
During my internship I have begun to love Perceptual 6.39 1.26
my host country.
I want to visit my host country again. Perceptual 5.01 1.80

a
1 = Totally disagree; 7 = Totally agree.
 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711 701

evidence (Table 1). With regard to the self-maintenance dimension of

cross-cultural competencies, students agree fully on adjusting to the
street life and ecological conditions. They also say that they learned
considerably more about the socio-economic and political institutions
in the host country. Looking at the relationship dimension, students
felt that they communicated in a satisfactory way with colleagues at
work and local people. However, the students agreed less upon over-
coming language differences and the learning of conflict-resolution
skills. With regard to the perceptual dimension, respondents came to
understand the dominant views of the host country on international
political controversies. Also, in retrospect they talk affectionately about
their host country and express a longing to visit their host country
again.
The learning of intrapersonal, interpersonal and people manage-
ment skills are on the whole less pronounced than the cross-cultural
competences (Table 1). The interns are moderately positive in terms
of the management skills that they learned during their internship
abroad. They felt it taught them relatively little about their study disci-
pline. With regard to the intrapersonal management skills, they in par-
ticular increased their self awareness, learned to solve problems, but
learned only little time management skills. Interns improved their ver-
bal communication skills with co-workers. The neutral scores for moti-
vating co-workers and delegation of tasks to co-workers suggest that
students do relatively independent jobs in which few leadership quali-
ties need to be used.
With regard to the cultural distance hypotheses, no relationship was
found between Kogut and Singh’s cultural distance construct and
either management skills or cross-cultural competencies (Tables 2
and 3). Hypotheses 1 and 2 are rejected. Based on our theoretical argu-
ment, measuring the effect of cultural distance asymmetry should pro-
vide more meaningful results. We looked at how an increase/decrease
in Hofstede dimensions affected the learning of management skills or
cross-cultural competencies (Tables 2 and 3). In particular, an increase
in power distance and individualism produced significant effects. For
management skills, power distance increase negatively affected study
discipline, time management skills, problem-solving, verbal communi-
cation, self motivation and motivating others. Individualism increase

Table 2. Pearson correlation coefficients among cultural distance and perceived management skills (N = 967)

Study Self- Time Problem Verbal Motivate Motivate Delegate

awareness management solving communication self other tasks

Psychic ,231** ,148** ,290** ,149** ,186** ,161** ,117** ,143**

distance
CD Hofstede 0.15 .053 .026 .061 .021 .022 .031 .010
Pdi increase .223** .060 .333** .172** .181** .157** .097** .150
Idv increase .210** .045 .302** .145** .187** .191** .141** .183**
Mas increase .001 .013 .056 .027 .057 .039 .003 .031
Uai increase .074* .071 .050 .070* .097** .044 .045 .120**

* **
p < .05.; p < .01.
702 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711

Table 3. Pearson correlation coefficients among cultural distance and perceived cross cultural competencies (N = 949)

Formal Street Ecological Communi- Conflict Language Communi- Dominant Love Visit
insti- life conditions cation resolution hindrance cation views HC HC
tutions style locals

Psychic .020 .039 .015 .067 .054 .045 .102** 0.013 .121** .133**
distance
CD Hofstede .031 .027 .046 .032 .010 .051 .014 .036 .007 .040
Pdi increase .117** .006 .082* .111 .076* .009 .151** .018 .078* 077*
Idv increase .089* .027 .024 .128** .102** .011 .101** .012 .019 .087*
Mas increase .007 .028 .030 .030 .014 .037 .031 .043 .042 .003
Uai increase .027 .009 0.051 .110** .064 .142** .113** .030 .024 .010

* **
p < .05.; p < .01.

positively affected study discipline, time management, problem-solv-

ing, verbal communication, self motivation, motivate others and task
delegation. Uncertainty avoidance increase negatively affected verbal
communication and task delegation. Hypotheses 3, 4 and 6 are ac-
cepted. Hypothesis 5 is rejected.
For cross-cultural competences, the influence of cultural distance
asymmetry was less present. Power distance increase had a positive
influence on learning about formal socio-economic and political insti-
tutions of the host country and negative influence on communicating
with locals. Individualism increase made it easier to adapt to the com-
munication style of colleagues, easier to apply conflict resolution skills
and communicate with locals. Uncertainty avoidance increase had a
negative influence on adapting to the communication style of col-
leagues, communication with locals and a positive relationship with
language hindrance. Since most of the cross-cultural competencies
items didn’t relate to Hofstede dimension increases, we reject hypoth-
eses 7, 8, 9 and 10.
Psychic distance produced significant negative relationships with the
learning of all management skills (Table 2). Hypothesis 11 is accepted.
With regard to cross-cultural competencies (Table 3) only strong neg-
ative relationships were found with communication with locals and per-
ception towards the host country, ‘‘I have begun to love my host
country’’ and ‘‘I want to visit my host country again’’. Thus, larger psy-
chic distance has a significant negative effect on the liking of another
culture. Hypothesis 12 is rejected.
We used a one-way ANOVA to compare the psychic distance means
of different economic zone transitions. Analysis of variance showed
that the effect of economic zone transition was significant (F = 9,468;
df = 15; p < 0.00), which justifies the use of post hoc analyses, in our
case the conservative Tukey HSD test. Table 4 shows a general pattern
where psychic distance gradually increases as the intern travels to less
economically developed countries. The perceived distance is highest
when students travel to low income countries. The psychic distance dif-
fers significantly in the following economic zone transitions. Interns
who live in upper-middle-income countries perceived cultural distance
to be significantly higher when travelling to low-income and other
upper-middle-income countries, than to high-income countries.
 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711 703

Table 4. Psychic distance related to economic zone transition, Mean and

Sample size (N = 967)

LIC LMC UMC High income

LIC 15.84 (8) 25.92 (4) 13.08 (10) 11.83 (21)

LMC 20.08 (13) 11.62 (15) 12.19 (48) 12.03 (93)
UMC 22.61 (44) 16.40 (38) 17.75 (53) 10.64 (112)
High income 21.85 (146) 17.92 (78) 15.96 (141) 11.37 (143)

Similarly, interns living in high-income countries perceived cultural

distance to be significantly higher when travelling to low-income coun-
tries, lower-middle-income countries and upper-middle-countries than
other high-income countries.
The ANOVA also provided additional information on cultural asym-
metry. Post hoc analyses using Tukey HSD confirmed that the mean for
psychic distance was significantly higher when travelling from high in-
come countries to low income, lower-middle income countries and
upper-middle income countries than vice versa.

DISCUSSION
Our objective is to measure perceived learning effects of overseas
internships and the influence of cultural distance. Our study concludes
that students think that they learn a broad range of management- and
cross-cultural competencies. Interestingly, the influence of cultural dis-
tance as measured by the Kogut and Singh index proved to be insignif-
icant in respect of either management skills or cross-cultural
competencies. Given the fact that, in contrast, both psychic distance
and cultural asymmetry do point at significant correlations our find-
ings provide support for earlier calls (Shenkar 2001) to re-examine
the validity of the construct.
With regard to management skills we found moderate learning ef-
fects, which significantly decreased when interns travel to countries
with higher power distance and a degree of lower individualism than
typically encountered in their home country, or perceive high cultural
distance. Following Feldman et al (1998) it could be that a lack of job
autonomy and senior colleague support impede their learning. This
might be due to unfamiliarity amongst managers in less-developed
countries with the overseas internship, which is mostly a western con-
cept. The lack of management skill utilization during overseas intern-
ships has been noted by other authors (Feldman and Bolino 2000). As
with domestic internships, interns often end up doing secretarial jobs
and other low quality assignments. These problems can partially be
solved by improving assignment procedures, work design, mentoring
and organizational preparation for internship programs. In an interna-
tional context, a lack of cross-cultural preparation, through training of
language and communication skills, or previous experience could
704 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711

imply that interns are not able to do challenging work (Feldman and
Bolino 2000).
In general, both psychic distance and cultural asymmetry do not
seem to influence the perceived learning of cross-cultural competen-
cies. This finding is in line with some of the recent expatriate research,
which revealed no significant relation between cultural novelty and cul-
tural adjustment (Selmer 2006). Surprisingly, business expatriates find
it just as difficult to adjust to a similar culture as to a very different cul-
ture. Selmer’s main argument is that expatriates underestimate the cul-
tural subtleties when they travel to foreign cultures that they expect to
be similar to their home country. Our findings show that interns per-
ceive cultural adjustment to be fairly easy, regardless of where they
travel.
The rejection of hypotheses as well as the above discussion would
suggest that our conceptual model could be reduced to a model where
significant correlations exist only between the antecedents power dis-
tance increase, individualism increase, psychic distance and the depen-
dent variable management skills. However, as both psychic distance
and cultural asymmetry have a significant negative relationship with
the item ‘‘interaction between interns and locals’’, a more nuanced
picture surfaces. Amongst others, it suggests that adaptation or integra-
tion is difficult to achieve in these cases. One interpretation may be
that the intern accepts and respects the different values and cultural
expressions, but might not necessarily agree with them (Bennett
1993). This argument could be further underpinned by the fact that
many anecdotes conveyed by our respondents in the survey tell us that
they received a significant degree of social support from other interns
who happened to work in same city, region or country. As one student
put it ‘‘If AIESEC trainees were not there, I think I would go crazy. I’m
really happy that AIESEC United Arabic Emirates has in town more
than 11 trainees, it was very helpful to have people with whom you chill
out, have fun.’’. This is in line with expatriate literature which showed
that expats maintain strong ties with other expats, favorably co-nation-
als, and interacted little with local people outside work time (Manev
and Stevenson 2001). Likewise, independent travelers often use back-
packer enclaves to re-treat from unfamiliar territory, relax in a control-
lable environment, share travel experiences with fellow travelers and
plan new activities (Hottola 2005; Howard 2007).
The formation of ethnocentric networks is undesirable from a man-
agerial and learning point of view. From a managerial perspective, re-
search has shown that network closeness had a negative influence on
expatriate psychological well-being (Wang and Kanungo 2004). From
a learning perspective, the intern may feel that he or she has fully ad-
justed to the host culture, while in reality the expat enclave buffers ef-
fects of the foreign culture (Thompson and Tambyah 1999).
Furthermore, the relatively short time frame of the internship, usually
5 months in duration (van Wijk et al forthcoming), imposes limitations
on realistic judgment. Hansel (1988) noted that year program ex-
change students were more conservative in the perceptions of change
than 3 months exchange students. Finally, the relatively young age of
 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711 705

the students might prevent them from meaningful reflection (Dukes,

Lockwood, Oliver, Pezalla and Wilker 1994) and explains the possible
positive bias in perceptions.
Thus as Litvin (2003) argues, one must exercise caution before claim-
ing that inter-cultural understanding is truly achieved. On the other
hand, students frequently mentioned that fellow trainees contributed
significantly to their learning experience. ‘‘The most important and
interesting part of my internship in Guatemala was living with other
trainees that were going through a similar experience and sharing time
and conversations with AIESEC members, which opened my eyes to-
wards their and my own culture, enriching in that way the experience.’’
Such intercultural learning experiences among travelers is also noticed
by Robert Wood (cited in Hottola 2005) and points to the importance
of equal status in cross-cultural learning (Pizam et al 1991).
Previous research has shown that an increase in cross-cultural com-
petencies can be achieved under specific social support conditions,
such as cross-cultural training prior to the trip, guidance during the
exposure to and encounters with the host population, and post-trip
contemplation and discussion (Pizam 1996). Reflective learning is also
important to levering and justifying the academic value of experiential
learning (Steinberg 2002). As such, a balanced social support network
of academic tutors, company mentors, co-nationals, fellow trainees and
locals (e.g. buddy or host-family) holds the potential for an optimal
learning experience (Hansel 1988).
Cross-cultural training could be particularly effective for students
who have to bridge a high psychic distance, such as students from high
and middle-income countries travelling to low-income countries such
as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Cote D-Ivoire, Ghana, India,
Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Togo and Uganda. Most countries in this re-
gion belong to the poorest economic zone of the world with a GNP of
below $ 2,000 per capita, and they score low on the traditional/secular-
rational and survival/self-expression value dimensions (Inglehart and
Baker 2000). Our results imply that foreign students could not identify
themselves with the host society values and found it difficult to estab-
lish meaningful interactions. This should not come as a surprise. Said
(1978) describes how for untold centuries the relations between cul-
tures of humans and their subsequent linguistic construction of non-
Western cultures as ‘‘Orientalism’’, that is a process of labelling the
people of underdeveloped cultures as insignificant ‘‘others’’. Due to
the negative stereotypes portrayed in western media (Said 1978; Park
and Wilkins 2005) students are likely to perceive the values of the ‘‘oth-
ers’’ to be inferior. This perpetuates a centuries-old colonial mindset
and foregoes the chance that inter-cultural interaction may result in
learning and adopting certain practices from another culture. Ecolog-
ical challenges in low-income countries in Africa or South Asia might
also have contributed to making adjustment amongst Western students
more difficult (Hottola 2004). In contrast, the interns from less devel-
oped countries seem to find it relatively easy to adjust to high income
countries and learn management skills. This could be due to more
favourable job factors such as autonomy, senior colleague support
706 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711

and technological advances. It could also be that, by using the media,

they have become familiarized with their destination cultures already at
home, hence contributing to the low means for psychic distance.
On the whole, pre-departure cross-cultural training could help stu-
dents to prepare better and practically for their trip and mitigate cul-
tural confusion. Training should deal with topics such as factual,
conceptual and attributional cultural knowledge, stress and coping
strategies, intercultural business skills and information on daily living
issues (Bennett, Aston and Colquhoun et al 2000; Leiba-O’Sullivan
1999).
If an intern learns little concerning management skills and cross-cul-
tural competencies, organizational and educational support might be
seen to have failed. In contrast, however, the intern could still perceive
the travel experience worthwhile. Anecdotal evidence in our study sug-
gests that students’ travel motives are also related to self-development,
adventure and fun. In our survey, the prominent self-development
dimension was present in the learning of self-awareness and duplicates
findings by van Wijk et al (forthcoming) and, on a more general level,
Desforges (2000). Students learned to deal with unusual and unpre-
dictable situations. Gmelch (1997) also found that the main impact
of the travelling was on the student’s personal development. Students
themselves, as well as their parents, indicated that the travels had in-
creased students’ self-confidence and maturity, and their ability to
cope with unusual and unpredictable situations (e.g. missing train con-
nections, unavailable accommodation). In our case, an intern re-
marked: ‘‘It was a phenomenal, life altering experience. It may not
have met my initial expectations but that was the beauty of the experi-
ence. I learned most from the times that things did not go the way that
I expected them to.’’
However, according to Adler (1975) transitional experiences holds
the potential for interns to go beyond mere behavioral adjustment
and change value systems. In its optimal form the overseas internship
provides a framework that prepares students to become immersed
within a change experience and gain new insight in the importance
of values as a belief system that shapes one’s goals and motivations.
For example, van Wijk et al (forthcoming) found that the overseas
internship had a significant higher influence on future career choices
than domestic internships. Put differently, developing students under-
standing of how they perceive and respond to cultural rules, not only
those of others but also their own, holds a vast and rich potential to ad-
dress inter-cultural communication barriers. Future studies could con-
tribute importantly, by investigating the self-development dimension of
educational travel in a more in-depth way.

CONCLUSION
In an era where cultural interactions have become more frequent
and intense (Magala 2006), this article explored the merits of educa-
tional travel, in particular overseas internships, as a learning experi-
 E. van ‘t Klooster et al. / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 690–711 707

ence for bridging cultural distance. In general, overseas interns believe

themselves to learn a broad range of management skills and cross-cul-
tural competencies. However, the findings also imply a wake up call for
students, and by extension, educational institutions, intermediaries
and host-organizations. The inclusion of educational travel programs
in business school curricula doesn’t automatically produce globally
competent individuals. Moreover, the study shows that students who
travel to countries characterized by higher power distance, higher
uncertainty avoidance or lower individualism, or high psychic distance,
interact less with local people.
In order to maximally leverage the learning effects of overseas
internships, the educational travel segment should overcome the weak-
nesses of its distributed network. Besides improving the factors that
positively affect the skill utilization of interns (Feldman and Bolino
2000) a more professional approach is also needed in terms of social
support by different actors in the home and host country. These actors
should provide services that help interns to reduce uncertainties that
arise due to cultural differences (Adelman, Ahuvia and Goodwin
1994). Such research would also benefit other service providers in-
volved in educational travel. For example, Teichler (2004) notes that
there is room for improvement in institutional support to ERASMUS
exchange students in the European Union, in terms of language, soci-
ety and culture.
We believe that our research breaks the ground for analyzing issues
that play a much wider role in tourism in general. At the moment, rel-
atively little systematic research exists on the cross-cultural aspect of
service encounters in tourism (Weiermair 2000). However, the same
factors that prevent interns from learning in their foreign working
environment may play a role in shaping the tourists’ experience of
how they are treated. Admittedly, straightforward generalization is dif-
ficult, because our interns are much longer in the host country than
the average tourist, but surely the moment of becoming acquainted
with the host country and their way of dealing with people may be com-
parable. This longer exposure, however, facilitates generalization to
the sojourner literature, where many studies exist on the antecedents
of cross-cultural adjustment (e.g Shaffer, Harrison and Gilley 1999),
but systematic research on company support is lacking (Manev and Ste-
venson 2001). Future investigations of sojourners experience and sup-
port networks will benefit both practitioners and researchers in the
field of social sciences and business.

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Received 14 April 2007. Resubmitted 18 September 2007. Resubmitted 3 March 2008. Final
Version 14 May 2008. Accepted 15 May 2008. Refereed anonymously. Coordinating Editor:
Carla Santos

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com