Hritik Sanjay Kothari, and Luciana de Cresce El Debs, Ph.D.
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana
This poster delineates the various factors impacting the judgment of an intern working in the construction industry, considering “trust and collaboration” as a focal point of this study. Because of the increased demand for and participation in college students’ internships, internship programs and experience are beginning to attract scholarly attention. Although the effectiveness of the internship program and the satisfaction of interns are undoubtedly the results of interactions and relationships within the internship site, there is a lack of research on the role of communication and trust in creating these results. Due to the lack of research in this field, this study aims at gathering available data and provide an initial framework for larger research in the area. Preparing construction students to enter their professional fields requires training in not only technical skills but also the so-called ‘soft’ skills, which includes the ability to work in teams, solve complex problems and communicate with diverse stakeholders. The importance of trust and collaboration may not be visible physically, but it does act as a hidden element that can affect the project flow and personal development of an intern. The study is mainly aimed towards understanding the discernment of a company and its employees from an intern’s lens.
To determine the crucial factors impacting the degree of trust and collaboration for an intern working within a construction company. Our purpose is to investigate and understand, through a systematic literature review, the intern’s perception regarding levels of trust and collaboration in the construction industry and the major factors associated with lack of trust and collaboration within them. This research discusses a few relevant papers that deal with the trust and collaboration topics in the construction industry. First, the researchers defined the terms associated with demographics, training, project roles in industry and communication that should be used in data selection and data analysis as keywords. The main keywords identified are: (1) Demographics – Gender, Age, and other related terms; (2) Training –Internships, Summer Trainee, Employee etc.; (3) Project Roles – Supervisor, Manager, Architect, Engineers on-site etc.; (4) Communication: Trust, Collaboration, Cooperation, etc. A total of four sources were selected to collect papers: Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) Conference Proceedings; International Journal of Construction Engineering and Research (IJCER); American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Conference Proceedings and Engineering Village website.
This is an ongoing research. The selection and review of sources will take place from December 2019 and January 2020. Data analysis, including factor identification will be completed by the end of February. The month of March is specifically provided to summarize, poster drafting and final changes to the research.
This research extends work on the relatively new and growing internship demographic in the organizational environment by focusing on the impact of lack of trust and collaboration on the satisfaction and understanding of interns. The need for collaboration is created with an increasing amount of trust, which is considered extremely cardinal for achieving success in a project. Factors identified in this research could then be used in interviews and surveys that further evaluate interns’ views of trust and collaboration in the construction industry.
Keywords: Internship, Trust, Collaboration, Gender, Age, Construction, Communication, Organizational behavior