Preliminary Model of Spouse Influence on Managerial Global Assignment Willingness

Transcription

1 MOB Preliminary Model of Spouse Influence on Managerial Global Assignment Willingness Robert Konopaske, Chet Robie, and John M. Ivancevich Waterloo October Robert Konopaske, Chet Robie, and John M. Ivancevich. All rights reserved. Short sections may be quoted without permission, if full credit, including this copyright notice, is given to the source. The School of Business & Economics publishes working papers to stimulate discussion of its faculty s ongoing research programs. Your comments to the corresponding author at crobie@wlu.ca are welcome. The views and opinions expressed in this paper are the authors sole responsibility. They do not necessarily represent the positions of the School of Business & Economics or Wilfrid Laurier University.

2 Preliminary Model of Spouse Influence on Managerial Global Assignment Willingness Dr. Robert Konopaske Department of Management and Marketing Cameron School of Business The University of North Carolina at Wilmington Wilmington, North Carolina (tel) (fax) Dr. Chet Robie Department of Business School of Business & Economics Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo, Ontario Canada N2L 3C (tel) (fax) Dr. John M. Ivancevich Department of Management C.T. Bauer College of Business University of Houston Houston, Texas (tel) (fax) Paper prepared solely for possible publication in the International Journal of Human Resource Management

3 2 A Preliminary Model of Spouse Influence on Managerial Global Assignment Willingness ABSTRACT Using family systems theory as a conceptual framework, this research study proposes and tests a preliminary model that explains spouse willingness to relocate internationally and manager willingness to assume a global assignment. Previous research from the global assignments, international job relocation, and dual-career couples literatures has found that spouse attitudes often influence the attitudes of expatriates. However, scant research has been conducted to determine the factors that influence spouse attitudes toward both short- and long-term global relocation opportunities. The present study attempts to build understanding in this under-researched area of international human resource management. By understanding more about this important phenomenon, top decisionmakers and international human resource professionals can better identify and select those candidates who have family situations that will predispose them to accept global assignments. Data from questionnaires completed by 427 global managers and 167 spouses were used to test hypotheses that examined the relationships between individual, family, and organizational factors and spouse criterion variables. An additional hypothesis was tested to measure spouse influence on manager global assignment willingness. The data in the study were analyzed by conducting structural equation modeling. Theoretical, methodological, and practical contributions from the present study will be offered.

4 3 Introduction Globalization continues to create a highly competitive business environment for multinational organizations (Adler, 2002; Dowling, Welch and Schuler, 1999). In order to succeed in such an environment, US firms must strengthen their presence, involvement, and relative positions by utilizing their human assets in a manner that helps them establish and sustain competitive advantage (Barney, 1991; Schuler and Rogovsky, 1998). Unfortunately, demand for competent global managers is outstripping the current supply (Quelch and Bloom, 1999). Although there is ample evidence that global skills and competencies can be developed through international assignments (Kobrin, 1988; Tung, 1998), many potential candidates may not be willing to accept overseas assignments (Ball, 1999; Harvey, 1996; Hauser, 1999). Although many reasons for such reluctance have been investigated in the international human resource management literature (e.g., career derailment, difficulty in adjusting to new cultures, premature return, etc.), very little research has been conducted to identify and understand the important family factors that influence such decisions. One critical, yet under researched area, is the influence that the spouse s attitude can exert over the global assignee candidate s willingness to accept short- and long-term global assignments. Research from the international human resource management domain has shown repeatedly that the spouse plays a very influential role in the successful assignee s adjustment to and completion of the global assignment. For example, several studies have identified the spouse as the family member whose support of and satisfaction with an expatriate assignment are crucial for the overall success of that assignment (Brett and Stroh, 1995; Hays, 1974; Ivancevich, 1969; Miller, 1972). In addition, research has

5 4 shown that when the spouse was unable to adjust to the destination culture of the international assignment, then the significant other expatriate reported similar maladjustment (Black, 1988; Black and Stephens, 1989; Black and Gregersen, 1991). Not surprisingly, the most commonly cited reason for premature return from the expatriate assignment (or failure as denoted in the expatriate literature) is the spouse s inability to adjust to the new culture (Tung, 1981). The direct costs for such a "failure" can reach as high as $150,000 per expatriate (Black and Stephens, 1989). Indirect costs, though not as easily quantifiable, are thought to be quite high as well (Harzing, 1995). Indirect costs include lost business and goodwill in the host country, and the personal career impact and loss of confidence of the failed global assignee, once seen as a fasttracker within the home organization. Given the important role that spouses play in the overall success of the expatriate process, additional research needs to be conducted to improve the understanding about what influences spouse attitudes regarding willingness to relocate overseas for short and long periods of time. One can assume that if an expatriate candidate s spouse is not willing to relocate internationally, than many candidates for expatriate positions will be more likely to reject these important opportunities (Brett and Stroh, 1995). Such refusals will have severe consequences for many organizations that are already facing acute shortages of trained and qualified global managers (Quelch and Bloom, 1999) and will likely hamper their efforts to achieve and sustain competitive advantage in the world marketplace (Schuler and Rogovsky, 1998). The present study researches empirically the determinants of spouse willingness to relocate internationally and in turn, how this spouse attitudinal factor influences the

6 5 manager s willingness to assume a global assignment. The paper provides several substantive contributions to the international human resource management and willingness to relocate literatures. First, an integrative framework is proposed to increase the understanding of how individual, family and organizational factors can influence spouse international relocation attitudes and ultimately, manager willingness to assume a global assignment. Key predictor variables of spouse international relocation willingness were included in the present study such as the personality facet of adventurousness and the importance of company sponsored career support. Second, a time dimension (i.e., short-term less than 1 year; and, long-term between 1-4 years) was incorporated into both the spouse willingness to relocate internationally and manager willingness to assume a global assignment constructs. Multinational organizations are increasingly offering candidates shorter-term alternatives as a way to attract candidates who would otherwise reject the more traditional longer-term overseas assignments (Flynn, 1999; Martinez, 1999; PricewaterhouseCoopers, 1999; Solomon, 1999). Previous research has focused on willingness to relocate in general, and has neglected to capture the different types of global assignments that are fast becoming alternatives in multinational firms. The final major contribution has to do with the relevance of the sample. The sample in this study consisted of two groups: 1) globally oriented managers who are likely candidates for international job postings; and, 2) spouses of these managers. The managers are considered globally oriented because they have graduated from the same masters of international business studies program from a university in the southeastern U.S., have lived and worked overseas, and speak at least one foreign language. The current study is the only one of its kind that analyzes the impact of spouses relocation attitudes on these

7 6 globally oriented managers attitudes regarding international assignment willingness. This is important because top decision makers and international human resource professionals often attempt to recruit these experienced globally oriented managers for challenging international assignments. Conceptual foundation and hypotheses Family systems theory (Minuchin, 1974) proposes that an individual s actions are affected by the actions of other primary actors (e.g., spouse, children, etc.) in the family system. As mentioned above, the international human resource management literature has found that the spouse tends to have the most influential role regarding the expatriate s adjustment and success. Prior research indicates that there are significant family system effects in the expatriate context. For example, Caligiuri and colleagues (1998) found that family characteristics such as family support, family consideration, and family adaptability were related to expatriates adjustment in the host country. By understanding more about the specific factors that influence spouse s willingness to relocate overseas and whether spouses influence managers global assignment attitudes, international human resource managers and top decision makers can better identify and select those candidates who have family situations that will predispose them to accept global assignments. To study these phenomena, relevant constructs were identified from the global assignments, international careers, international dual-career couples, and domestic and international job transfer and relocation literatures. The constructs were integrated into an overall framework to predict the mediating variable, spouse willingness to relocate internationally. Spouse willingness, in turn, is expected to influence manager willingness

8 7 to assume a global assignment. The primary areas of study included the following: individual, family, and organizational level constructs. The individual level constructs consisted of spouse job involvement attitudes and the personality facet adventurousness. Family factors included the importance of living near elderly relatives and the number of children at home. And, the organizational level construct consisted of importance of company provided overseas career support for the spouse Insert Figure 1 here Individual factors influencing spouse willingness Spouse willingness to relocate internationally for short- or long-term periods of time can be influenced by a variety of individual level variables. Though several potential variables could have been included in the current study, a balance between parsimony and inclusiveness led us to study two variables that are especially relevant in influencing spouse international relocation willingness, spouse job involvement and spouse adventurousness. Job involvement. Previous research in the domestic job relocation domain suggests that spouse job involvement has a negative influence on spouses willingness to relocate within the US (Brett, 1982, 1984). Spouses who were highly involved in their work and careers were less likely to support the manager s career enhancing geographic moves than less involved working spouses (Employee Relocation Council, 1980). Applying this to the spouses of globally oriented managers who may be asked to assume a global assignment, we predict that spouses who are involved in their jobs will not want to uproot and move overseas for a short-time period of less than 1-year. The costs in

9 8 terms of disrupted career and income stream outweigh the potential benefits of this shortterm overseas sojourn. This is not the case with long-term international relocation where spouses are much more likely to reap the benefits of language acquisition, cross-cultural adjustment, and travel. The current study will attempt to confirm the relationship between job involvement and short-term international relocation willingness by testing the following hypothesis: H1: Spouse job involvement will be negatively related to spouse willingness to relocate internationally for short periods of time. Adventurousness. One of the facets of the openness construct of the International Personality Item Pool (which measures constructs similar to those of the NEO-PI-R), adventurousness, is especially well suited for studying international relocation willingness intentions (Costa and McCrae, 1992; Goldberg, 1999). The adventurousness facet, which assesses one s predisposition toward new foods, travel, and variety over routine, has considerable potential to inform the understanding of how personality can influence spouses international relocation willingness. Although global assignment researchers have studied the degree to which personality might influence expatriate success and desire to terminate the assignment (Arthur and Bennett, 1995; Caligiuri, 2000; Mendenhall and Oddou, 1985), research has not been conducted to assess whether personality influences spouse willingness to relocate internationally. We expect this personality facet to influence short- and long-term relocation willingness, since both options include changes in food, diet, routine, housing, and possibly language. In order to test this potential relationship, the following hypothesis is proposed: H2: Spouse adventurousness will be positively related to spouse willingness to relocate internationally for both short and long periods of time.

10 9 Family factors influencing spouse willingness In addition to individual factors, the literatures on willingness to relocate and global assignments suggest that family factors will influence spouse willingness to relocate internationally for short or long periods of time. These factors include the importance of living near elderly relatives and the number of children at home. Elderly relatives. The importance of living near elderly relatives (e.g., aging parents) is an increasingly relevant family-oriented predictor variable that has not received much attention in the global assignments or job relocation literatures. This is surprising when considering the rate of growth of the elderly population (persons 65 years and older) over the past several decades has greatly exceeded the growth rate of the population as a whole (United States Bureau of Census, 2000). An inevitable byproduct of this growth in the elderly population is that working employees (male and female) will be faced with the difficult task of balancing work and parent care demands. Such conflicting roles can profoundly affect both family life and organizational productivity (Lechner and Saski, 1995). Of the limited research that has looked at this important phenomenon, researchers (Landau, Shamir and Arthur, 1992) have reported that the existence of elderly relatives is negatively related to employee willingness to relocate for career enhancement. The current research will attempt to extend these findings to the spouses of global managers who relocate internationally by testing the following hypothesis: H3: Importance of living near elderly relatives will be negatively related to spouse willingness to relocate internationally for short and long periods of time.

11 10 Children at home. Most empirical research in the job relocation literature suggests that employees who have children at home are less likely to relocate; specifically, it has been reported that the number of children at home was negatively related to employee willingness to move for career advancement (Brett et al., 1992; Employee Relocation Council, 1990; Landau, Shamir and Arthur, 1992). Parents with children at home may be less willing to relocate due to disruption of children s social networks, school activities, and childcare arrangements (Landau et al., 1992). Extending these findings to spouses global relocation willingness, the following hypothesis was formulated: H4: The number of children at home will be negatively related to spouse willingness to relocate internationally for short and long periods of time. Organizational factor influencing spouse willingness - Overseas career support The global assignments literature suggests that company-sponsored career support for the spouse while the couple is in a host country is an important variable in determining spouse willingness to relocate internationally. Typically, overseas career support for spouses can come in a variety of forms, including: employment opportunities within the host country operation; assistance obtaining a work visa; payment of educational expenses to upgrade skills; and, introductions to decision makers in other multinational companies in the host country. Given the dramatic growth in dual-career couples over the past 30 years (Winkler, 1998) and evidence that potential assignees are refusing to take assignments due to spouse refusal to accompany them (The Conference Board, 1996), it is important to study the impact of overseas career support on spouse relocation willingness.

12 11 Spouses of global managers who feel it is very important for the employing company to provide comprehensive overseas career support often end up frustrated by the lack of programs that are available. In a study of dual-career families and international relocation policies, Harvey (1995) asked members of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) International what types of assistance their firms provided trailing spouses of expatriates during assignments. He reported the following findings: only 8% of respondents indicated that their company provided employment opportunities to the trailing spouse within the transferring company; only 12% provided some type of income replacement for a designated time period; and, only 29% gave assistance with government restrictions/requirements (Harvey, 1995). Given the relative lack of overseas support for trailing spouses by companies, spouses who believe this is an important issue will tend to shy away from long-term international relocation. Thus, we suggest the following hypothesis: H5: Importance of company-sponsored overseas career support for spouses will be negatively related to spouse willingness to relocate internationally for long periods of time. Spouse influence on manager global assignment willingness The global assignment literature has found that spouse and family factors can exert influence over expatriate intention to stay in the assignment and their general and work adjustment while overseas (Black and Stephens, 1989; Caligiuri et al., 1998). The willingness to relocate literature also provides evidence that spouse willingness to relocate influences managerial relocation intentions (Brett and Stroh, 1995). However, little is known about spouses influence over managers willingness to accept short-term global assignments, the types of assignments that are growing increasingly common in

13 12 today s multinational companies. This is an important issue when considering that many potential global assignees may refuse to accept an international assignment due to lack of support for the move on the part of the spouse. Extending these findings to the current study, we believe that spouse willingness to relocate will influence manager willingness to assume short- and long-term global assignments: H6: Spouse willingness to relocate for short and long periods of time will be positively related to manager willingness to accept a short- or long-term global assignment, respectively. Research methods Using a field study approach, the research utilized correlational analysis of self-report questionnaires from both global managers and their spouses. (Note: data from the global managers were also used in a different research study). Used in virtually every study of its kind, correlational analysis is judged to be an efficient and cost-effective method of examining the complex phenomena of global assignment and international relocation willingness. Research on spouse willingness to relocate internationally is in an exploratory stage and there is little previous research available to suggest which factors may "cause" a spouse to relocate overseas. Self-reports are appropriate for obtaining data that measures factual information (e.g., demographic data), personality data, and intentions about future behaviors (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986). Sample The sample consisted of 1,125 alumni and their spouses of a top-ranked master of international business studies program from a University in the southeastern US. The spouses of alumni were judged to be an appropriate sample because they are married to individuals who have several attributes that would increase the probability of their being selected for global assignments. Specifically, the entire group of alumni has integrated

14 13 domestic and international business training, fluency in one or more foreign languages, and at least six months of cross-cultural work and living experience overseas. Moreover, this group of alumni is diverse and likely to represent individuals in the global staffing candidate pool in that 16% of the group is foreign national, 64% are married or have a significant other, and 40% are female. As for the spouses, 24% were foreign national, 60% were female, and 98% were employed. Home address information was requested from the alumni office of the international business program. Although work address data were available for some of the alumni, home addresses were chosen because these records were more complete and accurate. Data collection procedures Data were collected through a series of mailings of two distinct self-report questionnaires (i.e., alumni version and spouse version) to the 1,125 target alumni and their spouses. Since data were not available regarding alumni marital status, a spouse version of the questionnaire was mailed with each alumni version. In the cover letter, alumni and spouses were instructed to complete and return their respective versions separately in order to decrease bias between the two sets of responses. Adhering to suggested questionnaire mailing protocol (Dillman, 2000; Roth and BeVier, 1998), the following steps were taken to ensure a satisfactory response rate: Step 1: Pre-survey notification letter was mailed to announce study and ask for assistance; Step 2: One week later, a cover letter and two questionnaires (alumni and spouse versions) were mailed;

15 14 Step 3: One week later, a follow-up postcard was mailed to remind alumni and spouses to return completed questionnaires; and, Step 4: Two weeks later, a second cover letter and two replacement questionnaires were mailed. First class postage was used on all outgoing correspondence and cover letters were personalized to reflect alumni name and address. Survey booklets included the name of the international business program and the researchers' identification and affiliation. Return postage was included which permitted the respondent to place questionnaire in the US mail system after completing it. Of the initial 1,125 alumni in the sample, a total of 950 were deliverable to the addresses in the database. Response rates included forty-five percent (427) of the alumni version of the questionnaires mailed to alumni managers were completed and returned. For the spouses, twenty-eight percent (167) from all available alumni-spouse pairs in the sample completed and returned the spouse version of the survey. Measures Based on the willingness to relocate and global assignment literatures, spouse gender and income were included as controls in the analysis (Brett and associates, 1992, 1995; Landau et al., 1992; Markham and Pleck, 1986; Noe and associates, 1988, 1993). Also drawn from the research literature were several individual, family, and organizational factors that can exert potential influence over spouse willingness to relocate internationally for short and long periods of time. Spouse job involvement. Spouse job involvement was assessed by using a fiveitem scale adapted from Kanungo s Job Involvement Questionnaire (1982). Measured on

16 15 a 7-point Likert-like scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree), a sample item from this scale includes: I am very much personally involved in my work. The internal consistency reliability for this scale is.80. Spouse adventurousness. Ten items were taken from the adventurousness facet of the International Personality Item Pool ( a public domain personality instrument which measures constructs similar to those in Costa and McCrae s (1992) NEO-PI-R. The adventurousness facet assesses one s predisposition toward new foods, travel, and variety (as opposed to routine). Measured on a 5-point Likert-like scale (1 = very inaccurate; 5 = very accurate), respondents were asked to indicate the number (1-5) that best describes how well each statement describes them. A sample item from this scale includes: Like to visit new places. In the current study, the Cronbach s alpha for these ten items was.84. Importance of living near elderly relatives. This multi-item scale was adapted from a single-item measure used by Landau and associates (1992) that asked respondents to indicate how important it was to have elderly relatives in the geographic area. Given the increasing pressures on many individuals in general, and spouses in particular to care for aging parents and other elderly relatives, a five-item measure was created to assess the importance that spouses placed on living near elderly relatives. Measured on a 7- point Likert-like scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree), a sample item from this scale includes: Living near elderly relatives is a priority. In the current study, the Cronbach s alpha for these five items was.90. Children at home. Used in several previous willingness to relocate studies (Brett et al., 1993; Landau et al., 1992; Noe and Barber, 1993), the number of children at home

17 16 was measured be asking respondents to indicate how many children were living with them at their primary residence. Importance of overseas career support. Spouses opinions regarding the importance of company sponsored overseas support was measured by five-item scale based on Harvey s (1995) research in this area of global assignments. Measured on a 7- point Likert-like scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree), a sample item from this scale includes: I feel it s important for my spouse s company to offer me job search assistance in the host country. Cronbach s alpha for these items was.78. Spouse willingness to relocate internationally. Building on Brett and Stroh's (1995) single-item measure of willingness to relocate internationally, we created two versions of a five-item measure to tap spouses' short-term and long-term willingness to relocate overseas in order to accompany their spouse who was transferred by the company. For the short-term version, spouses were asked to assume that their spouse (i.e., the manager in this study) was offered a position overseas for less than one year. Based on this background scenario, the spouse was then asked to what degree s/he would be willing to relocate internationally to accompany the transferred spouse. Measured on a 5-point Likert-like scale (1 = I would definitely not react this way ; 5 = I definitely would react this way ), a sample item from this scale asked respondents to choose a number (1-5) that best described their reaction to the statement: Be enthusiastic about moving internationally. The internal consistency reliability for this scale is.94. For the long-term international relocation version, spouses were asked to assume their spouse (the manager) had received the same transfer opportunity, but the overseas assignment would last from 1-4 years in time. The Cronbach's alpha for this scale was.92.

18 17 Manager willingness to assume a global assignment. Based on the single-item measure used in Brett and Stroh's (1995) willingness to relocate internationally study, two versions of a five-item measure were developed to assess managerial willingness to accept a short- and long-term global assignment. The short-term willingness to assume a global assignment scale asked respondents to assume they were offered an assignment requiring them to relocate overseas for a period of less than 12 months. Measured on a 5- point Likert-like scale (1 = I would definitely not react this way ; 5 = I definitely would react this way ), a sample item from this scale asked respondents to choose a number (1-5) that best described how they would react to the statement: Reluctantly take the assignment (reverse scored). The internal consistency reliability for this scale is.87. For the long-term global assignment willingness measure, respondents were asked to assume their firm offered them an overseas assignment of 1-4 years in length. The internal consistency reliability for the scale was.88. Data analytic techniques To maximize sample size for the structural equation modeling analyses, we replaced missing data with the variable mean. As noted in the data collection procedures section, this left us with 167 useable alumni-spouse pairs. Tests of the hypotheses were made by conducting structural equation modeling analyses to assess the size of the paths between predictors, mediator, and outcome. Structural equation modeling analysis. Two different models were run: (1) Two endogenous variables (spouse short-term willingness to relocate internationally and manager willingness to assume a short-term global assignment) were regressed on the individual, family, and organizational exogenous variables (see Figure 2), and (2) Two

19 18 endogenous variables (spouse long-term willingness to relocate internationally and manager willingness to assume a long-term global assignment) were regressed on the individual, family, and organizational exogenous variables (see Figure 3) Insert Figure 2 here Insert Figure 3 here The endogenous variables were first residualized to control for variance in spouse gender and spouse income. Maximum likelihood was the loss function used to produce estimates of the population parameters for the structural model. Because of the complexity of the model (e.g., residualization of endogenous variables) and the low case-to-indicator ratio (167 cases to 36 indicators or a 22-to-1 ratio of cases-to-indicators), we elected to test a path model instead of a full structural model. Measurement error was assessed in the 2 model, however, by setting the error terms equal to ( 1 α ) ˆ σ for each variable (Bollen, 1989, p. 168). Hu and Bentler s (1995) recommendation to interpret both absolute and incremental fit indexes was followed. For absolute fit indexes, we included the chisquare test and the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) index. This index is reverse-scaled between 0 and 1, with values of.05 and lower indicating a close fit. In assessing incremental fit, the nonnormed fit index (NNFI; Bentler and Bonett, 1980) and the comparative fit index (CFI; Bentler, 1995) were assessed. NNFI and CFI values of.90 and higher indicate that the hypothesized factor model adequately fits the data (Byrne, 1995).

20 19 Results The results of the structural equation modeling will be presented in two different sections: short-term willingness (please see Figure 2) and long-term willingness (please see Figure 3). Short-term willingness The proposed model provided an excellent fit to the data (χ 2 = 7.19, df = 13, p >.05). Inspection of the incremental fit indices (SRMR =.036, NNFI = 1.29, and CFI = 1.00) indicated a close fitting model (Byrne, 1995). The resultant model can be seen in Figure 2. Paths marked with an asterisk were significant at the.05 alpha level. As can be seen from Figure 2, the spouse job involvement spouse willingness (-.18), spouse adventurousness spouse willingness (.35), and spouse willingness manager willingness (.23) paths were all significant. These results provided support to Hypotheses 1, 2, and 6. Specifically, Hypothesis 1 stated that spouse job involvement will be negatively related to spouse willingness to relocate internationally for short periods of time; Hypothesis 2 stated that spouse adventurousness will be positively related to spouse willingness to relocate internationally for both short and long periods of time; and Hypothesis 6 stated that spouse willingness to relocate for short and long periods of time will be positively related to manager willingness to accept a short- or long-term global assignment, respectively. Long-term willingness The proposed model also provided an excellent fit to the data (χ 2 = 1.64, df = 13, p >.05). Inspection of the incremental fit indices (SRMR =.015, NNFI = 1.24, and CFI = 1.00) indicated a close fitting model (Byrne, 1995). The resultant model can be seen in Figure

21 20 3. Paths marked with an asterisk were significant at the.05 alpha level. As can be seen from Figure 3, spouse adventurousness spouse willingness (.44), importance of career support spouse willingness (-.22), and spouse willingness manager willingness (.55). These results provided support to Hypotheses 2, 5, and 6. Hypothesis 2 stated that spouse adventurousness will be positively related to spouse willingness to relocate internationally for both short and long periods of time; Hypothesis 5 stated that importance of company-sponsored overseas career support for spouses will be negatively related to spouse willingness to relocate internationally for long periods of time; and Hypothesis 6 stated that spouse willingness to relocate for short and long periods of time will be positively related to manager willingness to accept a short- or long-term global assignment, respectively. Discussion, limitations, and future research The results of the current study provided strong support for the importance of individual and organizational variables as antecedents of spouse willingness to relocate internationally. Additionally, spouse attitudes toward international relocation were found to be an important influence on manager willingness to assume a global assignment. The results of each of the six hypotheses will be discussed below. Discussion of hypotheses Individual factors. Job involvement was a significant negative predictor of spouse willingness to relocate internationally for periods of less than one year. Many spouses in the sample were not willing to jeopardize their careers or jobs for a relatively short sojourn overseas. As expected, this factor did not influence long-term international relocation opportunities. The long-term alternative, although certainly disruptive to

22 21 spouses careers, may be seen as a mixed blessing. It can provide many advantages that brief relocation opportunities do not. For example, some spouses may see living overseas for a few years as a great opportunity to bring the couple and/or family closer together emotionally, to learn a foreign language, to develop a deep understanding of another culture, and to travel within and around the destination country. Another individual predictor variable, adventurousness, was positively related to spouse willingness to relocate overseas for short and long periods of time. This is not surprising when considering that individuals who are more likely to adjust to international relocation demands are those who enjoy trying new foods, visiting new places, and beginning new activities in their lives. This finding is especially important in that it is the first time that spouse personality was assessed with regard to its influence on spouse willingness to relocate overseas. Decision-makers can apply these results to the selection process by providing potential global assignee candidates with a "take home" adventurousness inventory for both themselves and their spouses to complete. The candidates and their spouses can use the results (which can be kept private) as additional information when deciding whether to accept a global assignment and relocate overseas, respectively. Stated differently, this "take home" self-assessment of adventurousness can serve as a self-selection device. All things being equal, those spouses who score higher on the personality scale can be more confident in their ability to welcome the opportunity to relocate overseas which will entail visiting new places, eating new foods, etc. Family factors. The importance of elderly relatives did not influence spouses' willingness to relocate overseas for short or long periods of time. There are two possible reasons for this outcome. First, the spouse sample in the current study is 40% male.

23 22 Since female members of a family have traditionally assumed the role of primary caregiver, it is possible that many of the male spouses do not view living near elderly relatives as a deterrent to international relocation. Second, nearly one-quarter of the spouse sample was foreign national. Since the majority of these individuals do not have immediate family in the U.S. (i.e., their families are residing in their countries of origin), the issue of living near elderly relatives becomes non-important. Another family factor, the number of children at home, was not related to spouse international relocation willingness for either short or long periods of time. This finding is contrary to previous international relocation research that has found that the number of children at home was negatively related to spouse willingness to relocate internationally (Brett and Stroh, 1995). One possible reason for the lack of a significant relationship between these two variables is that the number of children at home measure, though used in previous international relocation research, may be too limited to capture these particular spouses attitudes toward exposing children to other cultures and languages. For example, many of the spouses in the sample (24%) are foreign national and as such, have experienced personal growth associated with international relocation. Having benefited from this cross-cultural experience, they may be favorably disposed to exposing their children to other cultures. Also, all of their spouses (i.e., the managers) have lived and worked in a host country as part of the requirements of their masters in international business studies program. As globally oriented individuals, they too will tend to have a positive attitude toward exposing their children to diverse cultures. Given the basic tenet of family systems theory that one s actions are affected by the actions of other primary

24 23 actors in the family system, the manager s positive attitude toward relocating the children may influence his/her spouse s attitude regarding this issue. Organizational factor. As expected, importance of company-sponsored overseas career support was negatively related to spouse willingness to relocate overseas for long periods of time. This finding indicates that spouses who value career assistance in the host country will be frustrated by the relative lack of such company-sponsored programs and thus, will be less willing to relocate internationally for long periods of time. Given the dramatic growth in dual-career couples over the past 30 years (Winkler, 1998) and evidence that potential assignees are refusing to take assignments due to spouse refusal to accompany them, this finding reinforces the need for multinational organizations to make dramatic improvements in the types of career and educational support provided to the spouses of global assignees. For example, Motorola s Dual Career Policy program provides spouses of global assignees with a lump-sum payment for educational expenses, work-related skills training, and employment agency fees (The Conference Board, 1996). Spouse willingness to relocate internationally factor. Spouse willingness to relocate overseas for short and long periods to time exerted a positive influence on manager short- and long-term global assignment willingness, respectively. These findings are in line with previous theoretical and empirical research in family systems theory that there exists a dynamic reciprocal relationship between global assignees and their spouses. As such, this study extends the findings of previous research that reported statistically significant relationships between spouse adjustment and expatriate adjustment (Black and Stephens, 1989), and between family adjustment and expatriate employment adjustment (Caligiuri et al., 1998). Multinational organizations must devise

25 24 methods that include the spouse in the overall recruitment and selection process of global assignees for both short- and long-term international assignments. While not wanting to be perceived as overly invasive, companies may want to take the following steps to improve the overall success of their global assignment programs: 1) provide global assignee candidates and their spouses with self-scoring cross-cultural adjustment inventories for home use; 2) introduce spouses of global assignee candidates to those repatriated spouses who had a positive experience living overseas (ideally, repatriated spouses should have been assigned to same region as relocating spouse); and, 3) provide pre-relocation and in-country training and networking assistance for spouses in order to facilitate their successful adjustment to living in the new culture. These preventative measures will help decrease the resistance to relocating internationally and should ultimately increase the overall success of global assignment programs. Limitations One of the limitations of this study is that the findings may not be generalizable to nonglobal managers or to global managers living outside of the US. This limitation does not decrease the value or contribution of the current study because more needs to be learned about the assignment willingness of this cosmopolitan group of global managers in the US. No previous research has focused solely on this group. A second limitation of the current research is the possible influence of common method variance on some of the results. Although self-reports are commonly used to obtain data that measure demographics, personality data, and intentions of future behaviors, some of the results can still be affected by artificial covariation (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986). In order to decrease the potential negative impact of common method

26 25 variance, scales were separated in different parts of the questionnaires (mixing the sequence of independent and dependent variable measures) and items on several of the scales were written in reverse order. In addition, separate questionnaires were provided to managers and spouses with instructions to complete and return them to the researcher separately. Manager and spouse questionnaires were each designed with return postage so that respondents could complete and mail them to the research on an individual basis. A third limitation focuses on response rates. Although the response rate for the managers was higher (i.e., 45%) than most response rates reported in the international human resource management literature, the response rates for spouses (28% of all married couples) were closer to the average of similar studies. Lower than desired response rates have the effect of decreasing the amount of statistical power available in the analysis to detect true effects between variables. Thus, it is possible that some of the family-related hypotheses that were not significant would have been fully supported if the sample size were larger. A final limitation is that data regarding actual acceptances of mobility opportunities were not available. Thus, we cannot be certain that manager willingness to assume a global assignment (or spouse willingness to relocate globally) will necessarily relate to the actual decision to accept a position (or to actually relocate overseas). However, Brett and Reilly (1988) reported that willingness to relocate within the US strongly predicted the actual decision to accept or reject a job transfer. Thus, future research needs to assess whether global assignment willingness will also predict the actual decision to accept or reject the traveling, short-term, or long-term global position.

27 26 Future research Although findings from this study answer many questions regarding what factors influence spouse willingness to relocate overseas and manager willingness to assume a global assignment, they also suggest several areas for inquiry. First, a longitudinal research study could be conducted to relate willingness to accept a global assignment with the actual decision to accept or reject it. As mentioned in the previous section, the present study was cross-sectional in nature and relied on capturing data about manager and spouse intentions at one point in time. Ultimately, profiles can be developed and refined as to which global managers and spouses are most likely to accept global assignments and relocation, respectively. Such knowledge can be stored in Human Resource Information Systems and be used for rapid deployment of personnel worldwide. Second, future research can be used to assess spouses willingness to relocate internationally a second or third time and global managers' willingness to take a second or third global assignment. Such a study would require an expansion of the present study's model to include variables from the first international relocation (e.g., location of assignment, degree to which spouse adjusted to the host culture and learned the language, whether spouse received overseas career support, etc.). This area of research is especially important to organizations that are confronting shortages in competent and experienced global managers. In order to compete in this era of intense global competition, firms need to have global staffing policies in place that encourage key personnel to accept second and third assignments. Third, a perceptual measure (e.g., I believe that bringing children to live in a different country for a short/long period of time is beneficial for their development ) can

28 27 be developed and validated to build understanding of an important family issue as it relates to international relocation opportunities, namely spouse and manager attitudes toward bringing children to different countries for short/long periods of time. It is quite possible that a positive relationship will emerge between this attitude and spouse willingness to relocate internationally. Last, future research could apply and test additional facets and dimensions of the Big Five personality characteristics to potential global assignees and their spouses in order to develop addition valid predictors of global assignment and international relocation willingness. This study provided evidence of the important role that one facet of the openness dimension adventurousness plays in the identification of spouses who are most likely to accept an international position and relocation, respectively. Building on these findings, it may be that other facets from the extraversion, agreeableness, emotional stability, and conscientiousness personality domains may prove equally important in predicting global willingness outcome variables. Conclusion Globalization is an extremely powerful force that is here to stay. Kanter (1995) summarized the impact and importance of globalization when commenting that: "Globalization is surely one of the most powerful and pervasive influences on nations, businesses, workplace, communities, and lives " (p.11). In order to survive and prosper in this era of globalization, it is critical that businesses develop spouse-friendly human resource policies in a way that enables them to achieve and sustain competitive advantage. If these policies are not developed, the demand for global managers will continue to far exceed the current supply (Quelch and Bloom, 1999). Firms must accept

29 28 that many of their best managers are not willing to accept global assignments based on concerns related to their spouses having to leave a job in which they are highly involved, or because the spouse does not possess enough adventurousness to thrive in a new host culture, etc. Thus, organizations must consider the important role that non-job factors such as spouse variables play in determining who is willing to accept a global assignment or relocation opportunity. Top decision makers and international human resource professionals must understand and be prepared to assist individuals with these spouse issues if they want to attract their best and brightest stars to "go global" which will ultimately help their organizations achieve and sustain competitive advantage in this intense era of globalization.

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