The Corporate Executive Wife's Coping Patterns in Response to Routine Husband-Father Absence^†

Because two major institutions, the corporation and the family, compete for the husband/father,¹ there is growing interest on both sides to identify coping behaviors and family lifestyles that allow for the comparability and healthy survival of both institutions as well as of the members within.

From a systems perspective, the routine absence of the corporate executive husband/father is a stressful event for the family, since his exits and returns require constant change in family system boundaries and role assignments. Though his absences are not as prolonged as in military separation, the corporate executive as a family member is gone long and often enough to require frequent reorganization of the family system. Though this constant state of flux is potentially highly stressful, some wives and families manage very well with this lifestyle. They may in fact cope so well that they deny being stressed at all. It is these coping wives who are of interest in this study.

Objectives and Rationale

In accordance with Wesley Burr's theoretical synthesis (5), a key variable in family stress research is Hansen's (10) family “vulnerability to stress.” Burr's basic premise is that “the greater the adaptability of a family, the less the vulnerability to stress and vice versa” (6, p. 396).

Based on this principle, the overall objectives of this study are (a) to investigate the coping patterns utilized by a unique group of functioning, i.e., nonclinical, corporate wives whose families deal with the stress of routine husband/father absence, and (b) to relate the findings of this study to the theoretical model of family stress formulated by Burr (5). The identification of these patterns of adaptation would produce important data regarding decrease in family vulnerability to stress within this sample.

The outcome of the continuous struggle between the corporation and the family has been the subject of much speculation in popular media but of little systematic study. Even with an intuitive grasp of the more obvious coping behaviors family members employ in response to repeated family separations (such as keeping busy, going to school, family outings, and investing in children), the range of these patterns remains unclear. Certainly the emotional and social adaptations spouses and families make in response to repeated separation-shave impact upon the health and stability of family members and more indirectly upon the executive's performance and promotion within the corporation (22). The identification of coping repertoires families employ under the repeated stress of separations has important implications both for corporate and personnel managers who seek to provide preventive supports for family life and for family health specialists who counsel troubled corporate families.

Review of Literature

Coping, defined here as strategies for dealing with stress (17), has been a concept of considerable interest to behavioral scientists attempting to understand the variations of life in the corporate family. However, the majority of investigations touching on the subject of the corporate family and coping behaviors have tended to emphasize maladjustment, particularly the psychiatric consequences of maladaptive responses to the corporate lifestyle. Seidenberg (25) underscored the deleterious effects of corporate life and concluded that wives are called upon to make an inordinate amount of personal compromises resulting in a loss of indentity and subsequent psychological dysfunction. Tiger reiterated the concept of corporate casualties in noting that “wives and children are deprived of the fundamental human requirements of social continuity and personal mobility” (26. p. 139).

The vast majority of parallel research regarding coping with separations has been conducted on military families. Even here, with the exception of two studies, the investigations have tended to emphasize the dysfunctional responses to separation — the wives' manifestations of depression, anxiety, acting-out behaviors, and psychosomatic complaints — as well as to emphasize the underlying dynamics of such responses (13, 9, 8, 4).

Rather than focusing only on maladaptive behaviors of clinical samples, coping may be viewed more fully as a range of alternatives used by functioning, stressed families and should be approached in a more comprehensive, systematic manner that identifies patterns of behavioral responses to repeated separations. Studies specifically relating coping patterns in this generic sense, although limited in number, may be traced to family separation research in relation to World War II. Hill (11) found a relatively predictable, roller-coaster-type pattern of adjustment that involved initial disorganization, followed by recovery and eventually reorganization. Adapting and refining Hill's approach to the study of family responses to separation, McCubbin and his colleagues (17) were able to systematically isolate six family coping patterns in response to prolonged separations during the Vietnam War: (a) seeking resolution and expressing feeling; (b) maintaining family integrity; (c) establishing autonomy and maintaining family ties; (d) reducing anxiety; (e) establishing independence through self-development; and (f) maintaining the past and dependence on religion. These coping patterns were shown to be functional and related to husband's and wife's background, the history of the marriage, the developmental stage of the family and the stresses of separation.

Unfortunately, research on the corporate family and its adjustment to the stress of separation has not paralleled these studies conducted on family separations in the military. Seidenberg (25) makes only fleeting reference to the nonpathological coping responses, e.g., corporate wives who retain their identities and do not merge into their husband's identities. Ringo (23), in a study of successful businessmen, university professors, and senior scientific and engineering personnel, did not focus on adjustment in separation but did emphasize the importance of the role of the wife (maintenance of the home, understanding husband, personal developments, and participation in husband-wife outside activities) in coping with the common stresses of professional life.

The most pertinent, but limited, nonclinical investigation was a descriptive survey by Lois Wyse conducted on 400 wives of corporation executives with annual income in excess of $100,000 (28). The investigator identified and described eight coping patterns: (a) being involved primarily in cooking and decorating; (b) volunteer activities; (c) reading; (d) taking care of their multiple homes; (e) taking care of themselves; (f) frequent shopping trips for clothes; (g) regular trips to the hairdresser; and (h) frequent travel. It must be noted, however, that many of these coping patterns appear to be a function of high income. Thus, findings from the Wyse study are limited to a very narrow population.

While important, these coping studies need further support from research on more varied samples of corporate executive families, particularly from nonclinical families representing varied levels of income. This study will focus on such a population in order to identify patterns by which these corporate executive wives can and do cope with routine husband absence.

Method

An inventory of coping responses was developed to provide information about what corporate wives found to be helpful patterns of responses to repeated family separations that are a part of corporate life. The construction of the Spouses' Coping Inventory (15) was thus guided by a design that would arrive at scales of coping patterns of adaptive behavior items that might be factorily homogeneous and possess a satisfactory construct validity. Building on the previous work on family coping responses (17), this instrument included the reliable items from the Coping with Separation Inventory (14) with an additional 69 items selected from previous investigation on the corporate family (24, 28) and from clinical experience with corporate families. The operational meaning of “coping” was established by the final list of 84 behavior items depicting how wives responded individually to the hardships of repeated separations over the years. The underlying dimensions of coping, identified as factors, were isolated through factor analysis involving a principal components solution with an orthogonal varimax rotation (12).

Subjects

The sample consisted of wives of senior insurance executives, middle managers, general agents, and award-winning salesmen who were guests of a multi-national corporation at a resort hotel. The men were selected to attend this special gathering in recognition of their exemplary performance over the previous year and a half of highly competitive work. It may be assumed, therefore, that the sample represented wives of men clearly identified as having responded successfully to the highly competitive demands of corporate life.² Of the 239 women in attendance at the convention, 110 attended the brunch and style show at which the questionnaire was administered. Of these, only 66 women filled out questionnaires completely and correctly. From notes on incompleted questionnaires and from later informal discussion with many of the women, it is the interviewer's opinion that the sample may be skewed in the positive direction. That is, those who completed the questionnaires were more likely to be coping satisfactorily as a corporate wife. Those not coping were more likely to toss away or tear up the questionnaire. Sample bias is therefore recognized but not considered detrimental, since objectives of this study were to reveal behavior patterns of wives who were coping satisfactorily.

The wives in the final sample of 66 ranged in age from 20 to 59 years with an average of 35 years and had attained an education level ranging from 8 to 19 years, with an average of 12.8 years. Their executive husbands ranged in age from 23 to 65 years, with the majority (70 per cent) above the age of 35. Husbands were slightly more educated than their wives with an average of 14 years. Furthermore, in contrast to their wives of whom 13.6 per cent had academic degrees of bachelors or higher, husbands had slightly greater academic accomplishments with over one-fourth (27.8 per cent) holding bachelor's degrees or higher. The length of marriage ranged from 1 to 34 years, with an average of 15.2 years. One-fourth of the couples indicated that they had been married previously. The wives perceived their marriages as satisfactory or very satisfactory (77.3 per cent), with only one person indicating the likely possibility of divorce or separation at the time of the study. For these wives, husbands were absent from the home an average of 9 days per month, with a range from 1 to 24 days. The families had an average of 3 children, with a range of 0 to 8. Only 8 families in the sample had no children at the time of the study.

Results

A correlational matrix was established using all 84 items from the Coping Inventory plus the criterion variable “Days per Month Husband is Required to be Away from Home.” This criterion was used to establish coping patterns most frequently used by the wives whose husbands were “most frequently required to be away from home.” According to Table I, nine coping mechanisms were used frequently by the corporate wives whose husbands were frequently absent.

These nine coping behaviors were then factored, using the varimax procedure (12) with orthogonal rotation. The results are conceptually consistent and readily interpreted (see Table II).

Factor I contains three items that load heavily in the positive direction and are conceptually consistent: “participating on a regular basis in planned activities conducted by other corporate wives,”“living up to what the corporation wants me to do,” and “being a good wife and doing what my husband wants me to do.” All items represent coping mechanisms that indicate the wife's acceptance of and participation in the corporate lifestyle and will therefore be entitled Fitting into the Corporate Lifestyle.

Factor II is comprised of three items, loaded negatively, that clearly reflect the wife's focus on herself: “developing myself as a person,”“involvement in social activities (parties, etc.) with friends,”“talking to someone about how I feel.” This factor will be entitled Developing Self and Interpersonal Relationships.

Three items loaded positively on Factor III and again are conceptually consistent: “believing that this is our style of life and I should enjoy it,”“keeping problems to myself,”“establishing a routine that is not dependent upon my husband's being around.” All items reflect the wife's recognition and acceptance of a lifestyle other than the togetherness model that is frequently espoused as ideal for intact families. The items indicate a lifestyle of Establishing Independence and Self-Sufficiency and will be so labeled.

Discussion

In the present study three independent coping patterns were used by corporate wives whose husbands were routinely absent: (a) Fitting into the Corporate Lifestyle; (b) Developing Self and Interpersonal Relationships; and (c) Establishing Independence and Self-Sufficiency. Though all three coping patterns contribute to strengthening the family system by minimizing the wife's vulnerability to stress, two behaviors, developing self and establishing independence/self-sufficiency, are not now accommodated in the Burr model of family stress. To further support the validity of this theoretical void, other recent research findings indicate the functionality of similar, although not identical, individual psychological variables as major coping mechanisms for the wife in various father-absent situations, routine as well as long-term (17, 3, 20).

The framework presented (see Figure 1) summarizes findings from the present study in relation to the Burr model.

According to Figure 1, Fitting into the Corporate Lifestyle is accommodated by Burr's variable, Family Definition of the Seriousness of the Change. That is, if the corporate wife buys into the corporate lifestyle and likes it, vulnerability to stress is decreased, since she views the situation as enjoyable rather than stressful. However, the other two coping patterns are not so readily accommodated. Though both Self-Development and Establishment of Independence logically are items of Family Adaptability, Burr never makes specific reference to the relevance of such individual behaviors in decreasing family vulnerability to stress. The isolation of coping behaviors involving the wife's development of self and her independence strongly suggests the importance of individual psychological variables in understanding family (group) behavior under stress. Although Hill (11) clearly underscores the importance of psychological variables in family vulnerability to stress, none were incorporated into the later Burr model, for reasons undefined. Though replication is necessary, it appears from this and other recent studies that adding such individual psychological variables would serve to augment the present family stress model and begin to explain more fully the variance in family adaptation to stress.

Conclusion

In contrast to previous investigations, which were more sociologic or psychiatric in orientation, the present study reveals coping patterns of functioning corporate executive wives who minimize vulnerability to stress and maximize adaptability by focusing on self-development, interpersonal relationships, independence, and self-sufficiency and by fitting into the corporate scene. While these findings have strong implication for researchers and clinicians interested in the survival of the corporate executive family, the findings also have implication for family stress theorists. Although only a pilot investigation of a unique sample, the three coping patterns isolated appear to extend Burr's theoretical model of family stress by emphasizing the importance of individual as well as systems variables in analyzing and understanding family behavior in response to stress.