The mobility work of men managers careers
Cristina Reis, University of Aveiro
Drawing on Reis (2004) work, this paper presents and discusses the notion of “mobility work” which is required for senior managers’ careers particular for those who are expatriates.
Reis demonstrated how a range feminist critical theoretical perspectives’ can be used to uncover discourse on expatriates focusing both on their career geographical movements and their management level progression.
Whether international senior managers are aware of their career movements or not, Reis showed that their wives are already part of their career plans at the beginning of their management careers, or they become part of it during their working lives, because the structure of career progression in management requires strong support in the private sphere. Particularly to get promotion from a local senior to an international senior position, wives have to fulfil several career tasks. The “mobility work” represents a very important issue for senior managers, which is full of potential conflicts between the spouses.
At senior management levels ‘mobility work’ is required for managers’ careers, and is, mainly provided by managers’ wives. However this is not the case for some senior managers because their wives refused to provide mobility work for an international career move. These managers feel let down by their wives, and unfortunately emphasise with stress that their wives and children have held them back in their career progression. If the wife is busy with dependent children, for example, she may not be able to leave everything behind and support the local senior manager’s international move. These managers see their families as an obstacle for their careers. In the context of mobility, managers present the management of the company they work for as ambivalent, because it values the advantages of a partner or the ‘natural’ abilities of a wife when the manager works abroad but it is also aware of the potential barriers for the geographical flexibility of managers coming from the resistance of their wives.
Although the management literature sees the family as one of the crucial aspects of international career moves (e.g. Brett and Stroh 1995, Brett et al 1993, Noe et al 1988) it usually discusses main practical problems (jobs for wives, housing, schooling, …) which possible ‘solutions’ could be offered by the company, and what families or individuals can do to ease the pressure of international relocation. There is hardly any profound and critical discussion about the circumstances (influence on decisions, possibilities of resistance, …) and consequences of international career moves for wives (e.g. their work careers, quality of life or dependency on their husbands). Management writers often see the wife of an international manager as having a taken-for-granted, natural role of supporting the manager and, therefore, they also ignore the importance of “mobility work” as defined by Reis (2004) for managers’ careers. Globalisation and the increasing importance of international management in many businesses make the “mobility work” of wives even more important for managers’ progress in their careers but also for companies’ success (Parker 1998). Therefore the material and ideological structural pressures on wives of managers to provide mobility work will not shrink, but may even increase.