Course Syllabus for students Autumn 2022

The aim of this course is to give students taking the course Internship in Business Administration (15 credits) the opportunity to develop their skills as reflective practitioners and action/participatory researchers.

1. Explain the meaning of reflective practice.
2. Account for knowledge of action/participatory research methods.

3. Reflect both on his/her own learning process and the development of knowledge.
4. Plan for an empirical study with action/participatory research methods.
5. Apply participatory research methods to gain new knowledge.
6. Independently write an academic report, which combines theory on method and reflection from research practice.

7. Reflect critically and independently on the practice, challenges and opportunities, of doing empirical studies in close contact and/or collaboration with a company.

If suitable to their study profile and course portfolio, program students have the possibility to do an internship in a business organization. The aim of the internship course is to facilitate increased in-depth learning within a predefined field of business administration. For a 15 credit internship, the minimum time spent with an organization is 10 weeks. Students themselves take the initiative to investigate their opportunity to take an internship course with a student counselor and also to locate an internship position.

„« Please note: The current course can only be taken as an addition to the 15-credit internship course, for students enrolled in a master program.

Since the course complements a 15-credit internship course, students can spend all or parts of the course away from campus. In view of this, students are responsible for structuring the course work.

To fulfill the academic requirements of the course, each student should submit an Advanced Internship report – an extensive report that reveals his/her knowledge of the meaning of reflective practice and interactive research methods, and the ability to apply these in gaining new knowledge from the field.

The report should be well structured and fulfill the scientific standards required by JIBS. The report should be 20-30 pages (excluding references and appendix) and contain the following:

1) Literature review including the assigned course literature and further articles selected by the student. The review should both summarize, compare, and assess the assigned/identified literature.

2) Description of the internship (study) with focus on the applied method. This method section should both explain what was done (with whom, and when) and explain/elaborate on how participatory research methods added to the learning outcome of the study.

3) Comparison of the student’s experiences from participatory research with another author’s experience. (For this part, students themselves identify suitable literature; books and/or research articles describing participatory research).

4) Critical reflection on the use of interactive research methods in relation to other methods for fulfilling research in business administration. This reflection should be based both on suitable literature and direct experiences from the field.

Formal requirements:

• Remember to make explicit and transparent references to other authors.
• Write in Word, Times New Roman, 12p, single-spaced.

The teaching is conducted in English.

Bachelor Degree in Business or Economics equal to 180 credits and registration on the course Internship in Business Administration (15 credits).

The course is graded Fail (U) or Pass (G).

The ILOs are examined according to below:

• All ILOs are examined in the Advanced Internship report

Name of the Test	Value	Grading
Assignment1,2	15 credits	U/G

¹ Determines the final grade of the course, which is issued only when all course units have been passed.
² The examination consists of a written assignment.

This course cannot be used to fulfill the requirement of the major.

- Checkland, P., and Holwell, S. (1998). Action Research: Its Nature and Validity. Systemic Practice and Action Research, Volume 11 Issue 1, pp.9-21.
- Clare Rigg, Kiran Trehan, (2008) "Critical reflection in the workplace: is it just too difficult?", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 32 Iss: 5, pp.374 – 384.
- Eden, C., and Huxham, C. (1996). Action Research for Management Research. British Journal of Management, Vol. 7, pp. 75-86.
- Grønhaug, K., and Olson, O. (1999). Action research and knowledge creation: merits and challenges. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Volume: 2 Issue: 1,pp. 6-14.
- Gummesson, E. (2000). Qualitative Methods in Management Research. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.
- Moon, J. (2004). A Handbook of Reflective and Experiential Learning: Theory and Practice. New York: RoutledgeFalmer.
- Siggelkow, N. (2007). Persuasion with case studies. Academy of Management Journal, 50: 20–24.
- At least 10 references more (articles published in academic journals and/or books with research orientation) related to the course topic – to be identified by the student.
Examples of concept that can be further explored include: participatory action research, participatory observation, reflective inquiry, participatory research, ethnographic studies, single case study, and interactive research.
Recommended databases (through Jönköping University library) for articles and/or books: Ebray; Sage, Emerald, JSTOR business; ScienceDirect.