MANAGING DUAL CAREERS

1
MANAGING DUAL CAREERS STRESS
2
DUAL CAREER COUPLES
3
DUAL CAREER COVERAGE

• Dual careers role play
• Review of research on personality dynamics of the
  dual career couple
• Divide into groups and discuss chapter 20
• Case Elizabeth Fisher (A), (B), (C)
• Other research on dual careers Life stages,
  organizational responses, the comparative
  dimension
• Review of geographical separation how to cope
  with it
• Class discussion of the dual career lesbian
  couple stress

4
DUAL CAREERS ROLE PLAY

• Form 3 person groups
• Conduct 1st role play
• Conduct 2nd role play
• Within the group discuss the observers
  observations
• Class discussion

5
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• What was the range of solutions arrived at by
  couples?
• To what extent were these solutions satisfactory
  to both members of the couple?
• Would you characterize the various couples as
  superordinate, synchronized, synthetic, severed?
• What behaviors helped couples reach mutually
  satisfactory decisions? What behaviors
  restricted their ability to reach such decisions?

6
PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS

• Prominent need for achievement
• Each needs strokes from the other
• Task persistence single-mindedness
• Competitive each keeps score

7
GROUP WORK FOCUS

• Work-family conflict
• Is WF conflict more likely to occur for you than
  FW conflict? Do women experience more conflict?
• Work-family integration
• Where does the balance lie between conflict
  enhancement? Which is more salient status
  enhancement or personality enrichment?
• Positive negative linkages between work and
  family roles
• Relate experiences encountered in your roles, the
  level of involvement invested in your roles,
  the attitudinal reactions to participation in
  your roles
• Where is the balance between positive negative?

8
ELIZABETH FISHER (A)
9
WHAT FACTORS SHAPE ELIZABETHS JOB SEARCH IIN THE
BEGINNING OF THE CASE?
10
WHAT WAS ELIZABETH AND PAULS INITIAL STRATEGY
Maori strategy design
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STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES

• Successful in generating job opportunities for
  herself through on-campus resources
• Elizabeth creates some limits

• Not very creative in generating offers through
  other means
• Job search too broad
• Does not consider the effect that MTS has on her
  job search
• Communication as a couple is lacking

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WHAT WOULD A GOOD DUAL CAREER JOB SEARCH LOOK
LIKE?
13
WHAT SHOULD ELIZABETH DO?
14
WHAT IS YOUR ASSESSMENT OF ELIZABETHS NEW SEARCH?
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OBSERVATIONS OF DUAL CAREER JOB SEARCHES

• A clear focus on the job search is important,
  but not sufficient, to the avoidance of potential
  problems.
• Time must be set aside for the sole purpose of
  discussing job search.
• Remain open to new learnings.
• Do not avoid talking about the difficult
  trade-offs.
• Be aware of forces that may suppress the act of
  open dialogue
• Recognize that your partner is not on the MBA
  cycle

16
OTHER RESEARCH ON DUAL CAREERS

• Life stages
• Organizational response
• The comparative framework

17
LIFE STAGES RESEARCH
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CAREER LIFE STAGES PERSONAL ENHANCEMENT
THEIR LINKAGES

• Study by Uma Sekaran in CJAS
• Career stages exploration establishment
  advancement growth, maintenance or stagnation
  ultimate decline
• Family life cycle stages from launching dual
  career family to the empty nest
• Personal enhancement stages
• Linkages among family life style, personal
  enhancement career development stages
  employee needs

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LIFESTYLE STAGES LINKAGES

• Stage 1 finding their identity
• Stage 2 establishing becoming secure
• Stage 3 asymmetrical, forced choice stage
• Stage 4 asymmetrical burn-out stage
• Stage 5 the problematic pre-retirement years

20
ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN SUGGESTIONS

• Examine recruitment policies to ensure that they
  are conducive to the employment of dual career
  couples.
• Install sensible parenting leave policies
  on-site child care facilities or pooled child
  care facilities close to the place of work
  alternative work patterns offered
• Revise promotion policies to take account of
  longer lives allow multiple career paths more
  choice of time for career advancement

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ORGANIZATIONAL STUDIES
22
ORGANIZATIONAL STUDIES

• Organizations do respond in a calculated manner
  positively to work-family issues when there are
  strong institutional pressures and when benefits
  from providing work-family programs are high.
• The higher the proportion of women managers the
  higher the probability that the organization will
  respond positively.
• The more visible the organization, the more
  positive the response.
• The lower the female unemployment in an industry,
  the greater the tendency for a positive response.

23
EFFECT OF POSITIVE HR POLICIES ON FIRM-LEVEL
PERFORMANCE

• Study found that the presence of a bundle of
  work-family policies is positively associated
  with perceived firm-level performance.
• Organizational performance, market performance,
  profit-sales growth
• Weak finding for the proportion of women
  interaction
• The relationship between work-family firm
  performance does not appear to be moderated by
  firm size.

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COMPARATIVE STUDIES
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COMPARATIVE STUDIES EXAMPLE OF CHINA

• Article in AMJ last year comparing sources of
  work-family conflict in China the United States
• National differences in orientations to self
  family
• Studied China and the States found that this
  hypothesis was supported.
• Also found that there was a limit work ethic
  may not sustain employees if work pressure
  continuously results in work-family conflict

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GEOGRAPHICAL SEPARATION
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GEOGRAPHICAL SEPARATION CHARACTERISTICS OF
COUPLES

• well educated affluent professionals
• Mean age mid to late 30s
• Over half married for more than 9 years
• The longer couples are married the less stressful
  is the separation
• The length of time couples commuted varied from
  months to 14 years
• Distance ranged from 40-2700 miles
• Half were apart less than one week at a time

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DILEMMAS OF THE COMMUTING LIFESTYLE

• Personal psychological dilemmas (most
  important)
• Identity dilemma
• Emotional support dilemma
• Intimacy dilemma
• Social dilemmas
• Work career dilemmas
• Situational dilemmas

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HOW TO SURVIVE GEOGRAPHICAL SEPARATION

• Be clear about your identity
• Close communication emotional support
  established for a long time prior to establishing
  a commuter relationship
• Be accommodative of each others absences
  preoccupations conflicting work schedules
  priorities
• When reuniting dont waste time on other
  obligations than investing in yourselves
• See the positive side to separation
• Form network of relationships supporting the
  commuting lifestyle

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SUCCESSFUL COMMUTER COUPLES

• Older
• Long marriages
• One already has an established career
• No children at home
• Other aids
• Adequate or high financial resources
• Both enjoy intense career motivations
• Weekly reunions
• View separation as temporary (even though it is
  not)

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LESBIAN DUAL CAREER COUPLE STRESS

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COMPARISON OF LESBIAN HETEROSEXUAL DUAL CAREER
COUPLES

• Lesbian couples emphasized the maintenance of
  equity in terms of financial matters
• Distinct gender differences in the spillover
  between work family roles, with the husband
  still identifying primarily with the breadwinner
  role the wives with the homemaker role
• One similarity in all the couples one member is
  more work-centered the other more relationship
  centered (but alternates in the lesbian
  relationship)

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STRESS DUAL CAREER COUPLES

• Lesbian dual career relationships role
  overload, equity issues time-based conflict
  most important sources of stress
• Heterosexual dual career relationship role
  conflict ambiguity important also role
  overload time-based conflict
• Disclosure at work this stressor was not
  present in heterosexual couples
• Only some organizations have employment policies
  to lessen some of the problems of dual career
  couples

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STRESS THE WOMAN MANAGER
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MECHANISMS USED BY WORKING WOMEN TO COPE WITH
STRESS

• POSITIVE
• Talk to a friend (56)
• Take action (50)
• Exercise (36)
• Blow off steam (33)
• Engage in a hobby (27)
• Get away from it all (21)

• NEGATIVE
• Drink coffee or soda or eat more (42)
• Keep it to myself (35)
• Act as if nothing much happened (30)
• Smoke cigarettes (23)
• Drink alcohol (15)

36
COPING WITH THE STRESS OF DUAL CAREERS

• Support system
• Equity
• How to cope with work overload issues
• Work at allowing oneself to experience leisure
• Examples holidays, weekends out of town
• Work on lessening household chores
• Provide adequate care for child rearing
• Modify your work to be more in tune with your
  partners work

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ASSIGNMENT FOR 11 AUGUST

• TOPIC AFFIRMATIVE ACTION THE IMPACTS OF
  DIVERSITY WORK-LIFE INITIATIVES IN
  ORGANIZATIONS
• Reading chapters 22-23
• Class Activity
• Gender Diversity in the Workplace of the Future