“Who knows you” for internship position? Unravelling the association between social capital and students’ internship placement difficulties

Purpose The objective of this study was to assess the association between students’ social capital (SC) and the relative easiness/difficulty in finding an institution or organization to host an internship. Design/methodology/approach A cross-section of 515 students enrolled in various programmes of study at a public university where internship from a compulsory component of training were sampled using a standardized questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, an ordinal probit regression model, and a nearest matching estimator were employed to analyse the data. Findings The results show that informal socializing significantly reduces the likelihood of finding it extremely difficult and increases the chance of finding it very easy to be placed in an institution for internship. The study found that having diverse friendships increases the chances of securing an internship placement (IP) by making the process much easier rather than difficult. Finally, it was found that, compared with participants who had a low level of social trust and associational involvement, those with a high level of social trust and associational involvement were significantly more likely to find it very easy to secure an IP. Practical implications Findings highlight the importance of designing SC programmes in the school curriculum to improve the employability of university graduates. Originality/value In Ghana, and any sub-Saharan African country, this is the first study exploring the nexus between SC and graduate IP difficulties.