Corporate transfers : factors affecting the transferred employee’s spouse’s willingness to move

The numerous mutual benefits that can result from a successful corporate transfer experience are addressed here. The reasons for refusal by an increasingly large number of executives and their families to be transferred are examined in addition to an exploration of the substantive organizational, personal and familial costs that are usually incurred in an unsuccessful transfer. The effects of transfer on a spouse's familial, career and social roles are discussed. It is believed and well supported that attention to these aspects would have a great impact on the outcome of the transfer itself. Thus, it is proposed that with a better understanding and awareness of spouses' needs and the problems facing them in event of transfers, greater care can be exercised in selecting those spouses who, because of their willingness to move, would suffer minimum role disruptions. Central to this proposal are the identification of those economic, psychological and other factors which cause trauma in cases of corporate transfer, and the relation of these factors to the willingness of spouses to accept their husbands' transfers. A sample of 164 spouses who had been transferred at least once with their husbands served as the sample for the principal statistical analysis. Another group of 176 spouses who had also been transferred at least once with their husbands served as the sample for cross-validation purposes. Multiple correlation analysis and tests for differences in means were used in both groups (i.e. working and non-working spouses) to explain the variance in the spouses' willingness to move. In the working spouse group, spouses' satisfaction with their present location appears to be the primary predictor of their willingness to move, while the locus of control of the non-working spouses seems to be the primary predictor of their willingness to move.Business, Sauder School ofGraduat