The Influence of the Spouse on American Expatriate Adjustment and Intent to Stay in Pacific Rim Overseas Assignments

Abstract

Past international human resource management literature has suggested that most American multinationalfirms that employ expatriate managers have difficulty successfully retaining these managers in overseas assignments. Although some scholars have suggested that the inability of the spouse to adjust is one of the major reasons expatriate managers return early from their overseas assignments, few researchers have attempted to verify empirically a relationship between the spouse's adjustment and the adjustment and intentions to stay or leave of the expatriate manager. This study found that a favorable opinion about the overseas assignment by the spouse is positively related to the spouse's adjustment and the novelty of the foreign culture has a negative relationship with the spouse's adjustment. Additionally, the adjustment of the spouse is highly correlated to the adjustment of the expatriate manager and the adjustment of the spouse and the expatriate are positively related to the expatriate's intention to stay in the overseas assignment.