Narratives by women managers about spousal support for their careers

Abstract

In this article we present a qualitative study of spousal support for the careers of women managers. The research material consists of the narratives of 25 women managers in Finland.The study has two main implications. Firstly, unlike previous studies, we use a narrative approach to demonstrate that a woman manager's career and spousal support are experienced as ambiguous and evolving over the career. The support was constructed by the women managers as flourishing, irrelevant, deficient or inconsistent. Secondly, to increase our knowledge about gender relations, we combine discussion of the topic with gender order analysis and suggest that gender order is critical for an understanding of the nature of spousal support. We conclude that a male spouse who is willing to break the traditional gender order and provide his wife with various forms of support is often constructed as having a positive influence on the career of his woman manager wife. The study calls attention to families as sites of doing gender.

The expatriate’s family as a stakeholder of the firm: a responsibility viewpoint

“…Even though previous research on expatriation has paid attention to the work-family relationship (e.g. Caligiuri et al 1998;Dupuis et al 2008;Haslberger and Brewster, 2008;Mäkelä et al 2011;Shaffer and Harrison 1998;Smith and Tornikoski 2012), very few studies on the work-family relationship have considered the significance of the family (Heikkinen, Lämsä and Hiillos 2014). A limitation of our research is that it ignores the diversity of families and of their members, who may have different roles in expatriation.…”

Career coordination strategies among dual career expatriate couples

“…Although the challenges faced by expatriate families are already well documented, more detailed research from the DCC perspective and with couples treated as a decisionmaking unit is still very limited in the international context (Harvey et al, 2009;Heikkinen et al, 2014;Lauring & Selmer, 2010;Mäkelä et al, 2011). Further research is still needed in order to better understand the role of one person in the career of their partner (Eby, Casper, Lockwood, Bordeaux, & Brinley, 2005).…”

“…Therefore, in this study, we aim to understand expatriates' and their partner's careers as intertwined phenomena and take into account the couple as a unit coordinating their careers together. This approach also responds to calls to study social processes shaping career priorities and the experiences of contemporary professionals as couples (Rusconi et al, 2013) and to consider individual's career choices and decisions in a broader context (Heikkinen, Lämsä, & Hiillos, 2014).…”

“…There are examples to be found in the literature of different perspectives on how couples organize and coordinate their behaviour in the labour market (Baird & Reeves, 2011;Heikkinen et al, 2014;Hergatt Huffman & Frevert, 2013;Litzky, Purohit, & Weer, 2008;Rusconi et al, 2013;Rusconi & Solga, 2007;Van Gus & Kraaykamp, 2008;Vohlídalová, 2007). According to the theory of career hierarchies (see, e.g., Pixley, 2008), the relative importance ascribed to each partner's career is the key factor when prioritizing those careers.…”

Virtual Work and Work-Life Balance for Managers

“…This is in line with Rodriguez (2011) who notes that female managers still meet hindrances related to family responsibilities that their male counterparts do not face. In a recent study, Heikkinen, Lämsä, & Hiillos (2013) show that female managers in Finland in general do not challenge the traditional gender order in their families. Instead, they produce themselves as bravely taking on both the conventional private feminine role and the public masculine role.…”