Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1986

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Psychology

Major Professor

Alvin G. Burstein

Committee Members

John Lounsbury, Bob Wahler, Priscilla White

Abstract

The rise in the number of working couples has impacted the workplace in myriad ways. While the needs of working couples and companies often are at variance, perhaps the most difficult area to resolve is that of geographic transfer. Typically if a transfer is accepted, one spouse must give up present employment and search for opportunities at the new location. As such opportunities may be limited, a small, but growing number of couples have set up an arrangement often referred to as "commuter marriage." That is, they maintain separate households in two different locations, and reunite when schedules permit, typically on weekends. To date, no data exists on the employer's response to this pattern, and little information is available on what factors influence decisions concerning geographic transfers when working couples are involved. This study was undertaken to address these issues, and to expand the commuter marriage literature in the area of the workplace.

Four hundred thirty-four past participants in the Tennessee Executive Development Program were contacted by mail and were given a series of "in-basket" decision-making tasks to evaluate the impact of various manager and employee characteristics on hypothetical decisions involving the geographic transfer of employees. One hundred fifty-one executives agreed to participate in the study. The impact of managers' sex and relationship status (whether or not a member of a working couple) and employees' sex, relationship status (member of a dual career, dual earner, or traditional couple), attitude toward the move (positive, ambivalent, or negative), and arrangement (both members of the couple move or the couple establishes a commuter marriage) on decision-making was investigated. Geographic transfers involving commuter marriages were predicted to be rated lower than those in which both members of the couple planned to relocate. Negative attitudes toward the move on the part of the couple were expected to result in lower ratings of the transfer. Further, it was predicted that moves involving dual career employees would be rated lower than those involving dual earner or traditional earners, and it was thought that transfers of female employees would be rated lower than those of males. Among the raters' characteristics, it was predicted that those with working spouses would evaluate the transfers of dual career employees more favorably than would raters who were unmarried or whose spouse was not employed, and that males and females would differ in their ratings.

Findings were in the predicted direction for arrangement, attitude toward the move, and employee relationship status, with the exception that transfers involving dual career employees were rated lower than those of traditional earners, but not than those involving dual earners. In contrast to the findings of previous studies, the employee's sex did not significantly affect ratings. The impact of manager sex could not be adequately assessed due to the small number of female managers in the sample; manager relationship status did not significantly affect ratings. A number of interaction effects were analyzed, and findings were discussed in terms of implications for future research.

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