Senior Female International Managers by Margaret Linehan

Author:Margaret Linehan [Linehan, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415791472
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

Two of the trailing spouses decided to retire early from their own careers to facilitate the careers of their partners. The two interviewees in this situation emphasised that having supportive partners, who took care of the cooking, shopping, and housework, undoubtedly contributed to the success of their careers. These two trailing spouses are members of the Brussels-based STUDS (Spouses Trailing Under Duress Successfully) group, and, along with approximately fifty-eight other male trailing spouses in the group, provide support for their executive partners' careers, as well as holding golf outings, fund-raising events and social evenings. The STUDS group provides a social network for the trailing spouses, which in turn helps them to settle in their new location:

My husband retired when we moved and undoubtedly that made it so much easier for me. I would say that is the single largest factor which allows me to perform to my full ability at my job. The one outside factor that has made all the difference to my job has been the support of my husband. He is fabulous. He cooks for me all the time. When we moved here to Brussels he got involved with the STUDS (Spouses Trailing Under Duress Successfully) group, and this meant that we had a whole new social element and that was really good. There are about sixty men in this group who follow their highflying partners around the world. I believe, number one, STUDS helped us to make new friends and, number two, if you look at any of the research on expatriates you will see that the ones that don't make it are the ones where their spouses don't settle. If the spouses and families don't make it, then the employees don't make it (Managing Director, Telephone Company).

Potter (1989, p. 29) suggested that 'companies with successful familyrelated policies will be able to increasingly attract the cream of the crop in future workers'. This research confirms Potter's findings, as the interviewees foresaw problems for organisations which do not have positive policies on dual-career issues, and they believed that the absence of these policies should lead to difficulties in attracting the most suitable expatriates. The respondents did not expect organisations to spend substantial amounts of money to help them, but believed that much could be done at relatively little expense, such as financing educational courses for their partners. The interviewees perceived that family-related policies are not yet adequately developed in the organisations where they worked. In this regard, the interviewees spoke of the lack of organisational recognition for their partners having to put their careers on hold.

The results of Australian research by Pierce and Delahaye (1996), suggest that organisations may no longer be able to assume that the male partner's career will always take precedence, and that the female partner will always subordinate her career aspirations to those of her partner. This research confirms the earlier work of these authors, as only two of the interviewees regarded their own careers to be relatively less senior to the careers of their partners.

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