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JGM
5,1 Threatened identities: adjustment
narratives of expatriate spouses
Heidi Ellise Collins
Department of Business and Design, Swinburne University of Technology,
78 Kuching, Malaysia, and
Received 9 January 2017 Santina Bertone
Accepted 28 January 2017 Department of Business and Law, Swinburne University of Technology,
Melbourne, Australia

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore changes in the identity constructions of expatriate
accompanying spouses, as experienced throughout their first year of adjustment to living in Sarawak, Malaysia.
Design/methodology/approach – Using interview data collected longitudinally throughout ten
participants’ first year of living in Malaysia, changes observed in participants’ adjustment narratives over
time form the basis of an analysis of successful and unsuccessful cases of identity adjustment.
Findings – An international relocation presents varying degrees of threat or challenge to expatriate spouses’
central identities. The degree of threat posed will predict the amount of redefinition of social, role, and
personal identities required for successful adjustment across social, cultural, and personal domains. Men
experienced threats to their career/worker identity, whereas women faced multiple threats to identities such
as mother, wife/partner, child, and also their career/worker identity.
Research limitations/implications – Results of this small-n research may not be generalisable, but do
offer new interpretations of adjustment processes, including potential gender differences. The usefulness of
longitudinal narrative inquiry for exploring experience of change is highlighted.
Practical implications – Conversations about identity constructions should be held with expatriate
spouses in order to support relocation decision making, and to customise support programmes. Governments
wanting to attract and retain foreign talent should consider policies that address employment options for
spouses, which will allow for the continuation of central career identities.
Originality/value – Longitudinal case study analysis results in new interpretations of the adjustment
experiences of expatriate spouses over time.
Keywords Longitudinal research, Gender, Narrative inquiry, Adjustment, Expatriate spouse,
Identity construction
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
The terms expatriate spouse or expatriate accompanying partner refer to the male or female
spouse or committed partner of an expatriate employee. This term refers to those expatriate
spouses that are often termed trailing spouses, signifying they are relocating to support
their spouse or partner’s career, not being employed in the host country themselves
(Shaffer and Harrison, 2001). The inability of an accompanying spouse to adjust to life
abroad has been the most frequently cited cause of failure in international assignments
(Tung, 1987; Cartus Corporation, 2014). With evidence of both crossover and spillover
effects between expatriate employees and their spouses (Takeuchi et al., 2002; van der
Zee et al., 2005), the spouse can be an influential source of either stress or support for
the expatriate (Lauring and Selmer, 2010; Lazarova et al., 2010). The adjustment of the
expatriate spouse is therefore an issue of concern in the management of expatriate
relocations, whether company assigned or self-initiated.
Journal of Global Mobility Being more socially isolated than their working partners, subject to the pressures of
Vol. 5 No. 1, 2017
pp. 78-92
dealing with everyday life in a new cultural environment, and without the benefit
© Emerald Publishing Limited of continuity provided by work-life, (Brown, 2008), expatriate spouses have recently
2049-8799
DOI 10.1108/JGM-01-2017-0003 been described as undergoing identity loss or identity change (Mohr and Klein, 2004;
Kupka and Cathro, 2007; McNulty, 2012). The relevance of identity change in Adjustment
conceptualisations of expatriate spouse adjustment was first emphasised by Shaffer and narratives of
Harrison (2001), who concluded that the experience of expatriate spouses was one oriented expatriate
“strongly toward a loss and then a reclarification or reestablishment of identity” (p. 250). Other
researchers (van der Zee et al., 2005; Bikos et al., 2007) have also observed that new social and spouses
family roles the spouse may encounter present a challenging journey, during which a spouse
must create what has been described as a “meaningful portable identity” (McNulty, 2012, 79
p. 417). Concern with changing family roles appears especially salient for dual-career couples,
where the loss of an accompanying spouse’s career and altered financial status may place
strains on relationships during expatriation (Lazarova et al., 2010; Cole, 2011).
Despite growing awareness that identity change is an important facet of the expatriate
spouse adjustment experience, there has been little evidence presented to articulate how
this change is experienced, and limited discussion of why some spouses are better able
than others to reestablish their identity. In this paper, an analysis of the adjustment
experiences of eight female and two male accompanying spouses of expatriate employees
is discussed, with a particular focus on the males, and gender differences in their
experiences. By considering changes in participants’ narratives over time, evidence is
provided of a range of changes in identity experienced throughout their first year of living
in Sarawak, Malaysia. Understanding the changes to identity experienced by these
spouses can help to better predict those spouses who will require the greatest degree of
adjustment while abroad, and better design support programmes to enable them to
construct meaningful identities.

Literature review
Conceptualisations of adjustment
Cross-cultural adjustment is defined as a complex process of becoming capable of
functioning effectively in a culture other than the one in which a person was originally
socialised (Haslberger, 2005). The amount of time this process takes remains unclear,
with some researchers claiming adjustment can be achieved within one year (Tung, 1998;
Ward et al., 1998), but others finding evidence of a longer process which may take up to
three years (Bhaskar-Shrinivas et al., 2005).
In their work in the field of cross-cultural psychology, Ward and colleagues (Searle and
Ward, 1990; Ward and Kennedy, 1993) emphasised the need to consider separately both
psychological well-being (feelings of well-being and satisfaction) and socio-cultural
competence (being able to fit-in) as two broad dimensions of cross-cultural adjustment.
While the model of Ward et al. has been used as a theoretical basis for the study of expatriate
adjustment, Black et al. (1991) developed a model of expatriate adjustment that has been more
commonly employed. In this model cross-cultural adjustment is conceptualised as a stressful
transition. Adjustment is proposed to be experienced along three interrelated dimensions of
adjustment: work adjustment (adjustment to the new work environment), interaction
adjustment (adjustment to interaction with host country nationals), and general adjustment
(adjustment to the general cultural and physical environment, including living conditions,
food, shopping, transport, weather, and entertainment).
Applying the Black et al. (1991) model to early research on expatriate spouses, some
researchers have assumed that expatriate spouses would not experience work adjustment,
and that their adjustment experience could therefore be studied by only focussing on
general and interaction adjustment (Black and Gregersen, 1991). Indeed, many of the
recognised antecedents of expatriate employee adjustment have also been observed to be
applicable to expatriate spouses, including, for example, personality factors, social support,
and perceived organisational support (Shaffer and Harrison, 2001). However, it is now
argued that the adjustment experiences of the accompanying spouse who is not in
JGM employment are both different, and more challenging than those of working expatriates
5,1 (Adler and Gundersen, 2008). Shaffer and Harrison (2001) developed a model of expatriate
spouse adjustment which has been used as a basis for much subsequent research in the
field. In their model, spouses are described as experiencing adjustment in three interrelated
dimensions of adjustment: personal adjustment, interaction adjustment, and cultural
adjustment. In testing their model, Shaffer and Harrison (2001) used Black and Stephens’
80 (1989) measures of interaction and cultural adjustment to operationalise these constructs,
and added a personal adjustment construct to measure how well spouses had a sense of
“becoming part of, belonging to, or feeling at home” in the host country (Shaffer and
Harrison, 2001, p. 239). Following interviews with ten female expatriate spouses living in
Hong Kong, they concluded that rather than retaining past identities, it was more important
for spouses to establish new identities by building new interpersonal relationships.
As a result of a study of American spouses in Germany, Mohr and Klein (2004) similarly
suggested that along with interaction and cultural adjustment, a third dimension of adjustment
for spouses is that of role adjustment. The importance of a personal, role, or identity
adjustment dimension in the expatriate spouse experience has also been emphasised by other
researchers over the last decade (Kupka and Cathro, 2007; Cole, 2011; McNulty, 2012), although
there has been little work focussed on developing a conceptualisation of such a construct.

Male expatriate spouses

The number of female expatriate employees has been growing steadily since the 1980s,
when expatriates were almost exclusively male (Selmer and Leung, 2003). While recent
industry reports estimate that approximately 20 per cent of expatriate employees worldwide
are now women, only one third of these women are accompanied by their male spouse or
partner (Cartus Corporation, 2014). Male accompanying spouses are therefore a relatively
recent and rare phenomenon. In the correspondingly small body of research specifically
addressing adjustment from male perspective, three major issues have been highlighted:
the numerous barriers faced in finding employment in the host location; social isolation from
other males due to their small numbers, and their dependent status in a female breadwinner
family, and the rare and ineffectual employment support provided by their working
spouses’ employers (Punnett, 1997; Selmer and Leung, 2003; Cole, 2012).
Male spouses have been reported as frequently experiencing social isolation due to their
small numbers, exacerbated by the loss of status associated with a breadwinner role
(Harvey and Wiese, 1998; Anderson, 2001; Cole, 2012). While male spouses have indicated
feeling comfortable as part of a female breadwinner family, and often emphasise the
important back-stage support role they play in their wives’ careers (Cole, 2012; Davoine
et al., 2013), they have also reported that other people found it difficult to understand their
status (Cole, 2012). While such an experience has been suggested to lower self-esteem and
impact identity (Harvey and Wiese, 1998; Anderson, 2001; Cole, 2012), it is unclear whether
this is necessarily the case. Braseby (2010), for example, reported that male spouses who had
been stay-at-home fathers before their relocation generally had lower self-esteem, but the
relocation provided them opportunity for enhanced self-esteem.
Based on social role theory, which posits that differences observed in behaviour and
personalities of men and women lie in the contrasting distribution of men and women across
social roles (Eagly et al., 2012), it has been suggested that career-oriented male spouses will
have more difficulty than females in adjusting to interruptions in their career. This is on the
grounds that even with a loss of income or breadwinner status, women with accompanying
children still have their gendered mother role intact (Harvey and Wiese, 1998; Cole, 2012).
In accordance with social role theory, Cole (2011) reported that the cultural and interactional
adjustment of male career-oriented spouses who experienced interruption of employment
was significantly lower than that for career-oriented females.
Theoretical frameworks for spousal identity adjustment Adjustment
Identity has been defined as “the self-meanings that define who one is” (Burke, 2006, p. 81). narratives of
Two strands of identity theory have underpinned much of the research into identity in expatriate
relation to expatriate adjustment: group-based social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982; Tajfel and
Turner, 1986), and role-based identity theory (Burke, 1991, 2006). spouses
Social identity theories (e.g. Tajfel, 1982; Tajfel and Turner, 1986) have been widely used
to frame research in the field of expatriate adjustment (Sussman, 2011). From a social 81
identity approach individuals are seen to derive their identities from the social groups and
categories to which they subscribe, or are ascribed. Favourable comparison of an in-group to
which an individual belongs in relation to a corresponding out-group is considered
important for self-esteem. Multiple identities are recognised by this approach, in that an
individual belonging to many different social categories may have a repertoire of
many different identities to draw from. This approach has been applied in adjustment
research particularly in reference to the influence of social ties with host country nationals
(e.g. Shaffer and Harrison, 2001; Caligiuri and Lazarova, 2002; Brown, 2008).
Another strand of identity theory that has been employed conceptualises the core of an
identity as being based on the internalised role expectations associated with positions
occupied by individuals within networks of relationships (Burke, 1991, 2006; Stryker and
Burke, 2000). According to such role-based identity theory, individuals are viewed as
possessing as many identities as groups or networks of persons with whom they interact
and play roles. The multiple identities within the self are conceptualised as varying in
centrality (importance to the individual) and being organised in a salience hierarchy
(Stryker and Serpe, 1994). This emphasis is relevant to the study of expatriate spouses given
the changes in roles often experienced during their expatriation (Shaffer and Harrison, 2001;
Mohr and Klein, 2004).
Highlighting cultural identities as a crucial facet of adjustment, Berry (1997) describes
acculturation strategies in terms of the degree to which newcomers seek to maintain their
cultural identity and seek daily interaction with other cultures. In his typology, Berry (1997)
defines four different acculturation strategies: integration, assimilation, separation, and
marginalisation. As emphasised by Berry, adaptation or adjustment does not necessarily
imply a positive adaptation as an outcome, but may involve resistance, attempts to change
the environment, or attempts to move away from it.
Studies focussing on categorising identity constructions of expatriates have provided
some evidence of a range of identity adjustment strategies engaged by expatriates, whether
oriented towards identity maintenance or change. These have largely focussed on cultural
and organisational identities (e.g. Kohonen, 2008; van Bochove and Engbersen, 2015).
Detailed accounts of a broader range of possible identity changes experienced over time are,
however, lacking in expatriate literature, particularly in expatriate spouse research. It is this
gap the study presented here attempts to fill.

Method
Research approach
The majority of studies in the field of expatriation have been cross-sectional surveys
(Bhaskar-Shrinivas et al., 2005). As adjustment is a process that unfolds over time, it has
been recommended that longitudinal data be gathered if causal relationships are to emerge
(Bhaskar-Shrinivas et al., 2005; Ren et al., 2014). The research reported in this paper was
therefore designed as a longitudinal study. It has been suggested that individual differences
in the amplitude and timing of culture shock experiences may obscure adjustment patterns
when data are aggregated (Black and Mendenhall, 1991). The study was therefore designed
to treat the individual as the unit of analysis, to explore changes that may take place over
time within an individual, and to provide thick descriptions of the expatriate experience.
JGM The research design was based upon the constructionist assumptions that there may be
5,1 multiple locally constructed realities in the social world, and that the investigator and
investigated object are interactively linked.

Participant recruitment
To explore a wide range of experiences, the research was designed to include male and
82 female spouses of both company assigned and self-initiated expatriates. Ten participants
were recruited in a snowball sample, starting from the researcher’s personal connections
with expatriates living in Sarawak. As it was the intention to generate rather than test
theory with this research, ten participants were considered adequate to draw comparisons
and allow theoretical replication (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2003). Criteria for recruiting
participants were that they:
(1) were not Malaysian citizens;
(2) had been living in Sarawak for less than three months at the time of the first
interview;
(3) were married to, or in a committed relationship with a person employed under an
expatriate work visa in Sarawak;
(4) were intending to stay in Sarawak for 12 months or more;
(5) did not have employment pending in Malaysia at the time of arrival; and
(6) were able to communicate in English.

Data collection and analysis

Participants originating from seven different countries in Asia, Australasia, Africa, and
Europe were interviewed at four intervals throughout their first year in Sarawak. Interviews
were held between 2013 and 2015, at approximately 3, 6, 9, and 12 months after each
participant’s arrival. Semi-structured interviews were modelled after Flick’s (2000) episodic
interviewing method, which includes periodically inviting participants to tell stories of
recent events that had been meaningful to them. The first author, an insider in expatriate
spouse networks in Sarawak, conducted face-to-face interviews lasting between 35 and
70 minutes. Interviews were usually conducted in quiet cafes, or by request, in participants’
homes. Audio recordings were made with the signed consent of the participants, and
were later transcribed verbatim, including the interviewer’s interjections and questions
(which appear in italics in passages quoted below).
Interviews began with open-ended questions aimed at eliciting narratives that would
foreground participants’ relevancies, while subsequent conversations were built around the
experiences highlighted by participants. For example:
(1) Could you please tell me about yourself and how you came to be living in Sarawak?
(2) Can you tell me about any of the things that have happened in your life this month
that you found to be particularly positive – what have the best parts been?
(3) Could you please tell me about any experiences in your life this month that you
found particularly difficult or stressful?
In the first phase of data analysis, interview transcripts were coded thematically using
Atlas.ti software. This was an iterative process, comparing emerging themes with stress
and coping theories (e.g. Carver et al., 1989; Lazarus and Folkman, 1984), identity theories
(e.g. Tajfel, 1982; Burke, 2006), and comparing data within and across cases. In the second
phase of analysis, case studies were written for individual participants (who are referred to
by pseudonyms), and a cross-case comparison was performed. In the cross-case analysis, Adjustment
each case was compared along the themes identified in the first phase, taking note of narratives of
changes that occurred over time. expatriate
A broad range of steps was taken to ensure trustworthiness in the production of data, the
analytic process, as well as in the presentation of inferences drawn from them (Lincoln and spouses
Guba, 1985; Silverman, 2010). This included the following: making constant comparisons
between data, categories, and cases; the use of counting techniques to test the dependability of 83
impressions of the data; creation of detailed verbatim transcripts of interviews; providing thick
description of participants’ experiences; and keeping a research diary to support reflexivity.

Results
Perceived stressors as indicators of required identity adjustment
Within each participant’s narrative, there was evidence that the various stressors they
experienced contributed to threats or challenges to their sense of self. (Threats and
challenges are defined here in accordance with Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) definition;
threats anticipate a harm or loss, while not-necessarily mutually exclusive challenges, focus
more on a potential for change or growth.) For example, a participant’s inability to drive in
the city or understand local norms had the potential to challenge their sense of self-efficacy.
As one participant lamented, “I used to know where to go and get things”. As another
example, having to adjust to a new state of financial dependence on a spouse had the
potential to threaten the participant’s view of their self as an equal partner in the spousal
relationship. As Nancy emphasised at the end of the year, after finding herself unhappily
occupying an “entirely domestic” role for the first time in her life:
I don’t ever want [him] to expect that this is my role, and that I will be doing that and he will come
home and find me cooking … and he doesn’t have to do it anymore (Nancy, Interview 4).
Such threats or challenges arising from stressors perceived by each participant required
work by them to modify or redefine existing identities, or to incorporate positive new
identities in order to maintain self-esteem and emotional well-being. The potential that the
relocation had to present threats and challenges to multiple identities was clearly articulated
by Nancy, in her first interview:
Yeah, so not only were we moving country, I was giving up my job, and I was pregnant, and I was
going to be not working, living in a foreign country. With no career, no identity … or at least no
career identity, which again is always something that has been important to me … In the last six
years of my job you know, I’ve performed quite an important function … I commanded a certain
amount of respect. I was one of only three women in that role. So suddenly to be … barefoot and
pregnant in the kitchen … while my partner goes off to work, is a HUGE shift (Nancy, Interview 1).
The need to adjust one’s identity to align with the identity-reinforcing feedback available in
the new location, as predicted by Burke’s (1991) identity theory, featured to varying degrees
in participants’ narratives. Even for participants who were not able to articulate it as clearly
as Nancy, some degree of challenge or threat to identity, or a change in identity, was
nevertheless often discernible in their narratives.

Role identities: common threats to career and family role identities

The roles of mothers/fathers and wives/partners were the most common central and salient
identities articulated in participant narratives. While in some cases such family role
identities were threatened by the stressors associated with the relocation, a minority of
participants faced relatively few challenges to any of their central role identities.
For example, two of the women for whom homemaker, wife, and mother role identities were
most central and salient prior to the move, continued to speak of themselves primarily in
JGM these roles throughout the year in Sarawak. Having their husbands and children with them
5,1 throughout the year, and continuing in the roles of homemaker and mother in Sarawak, such
female participants required little effort to maintain or adjust their identities.
Career identities were threatened in five of the cases, including both of the men, despite
participants’ claims to have willingly left their jobs. The threat was especially high if the
career identity was particularly central and salient in the person’s sense of self. As an
84 example, prior to relocating, Sam knew he could not work in his trade in Malaysia due to
governmental policies. Despite this, Sam continued trying to find alternative forms of
employment, and his struggle to maintain his workingman identity dominated his narrative
throughout the year.
Leaving a dependent family member behind in the home location could also entail a high
degree of threat or challenge to central identities based on family roles such as daughter or
mother. For example, having left her teenage son at boarding school in her home country, Jane
appeared conflicted as a mother between the needs of the child accompanying her in Malaysia
and the child left in her home country. The challenges she faced in maintaining continuity in
her view of herself in her nurturing mother role were evident in the second interview:
He’s fine actually … I wish that he would miss me a bit more but he doesn’t. [laughs] Yeah, it’s like
at the moment the only time I get a text or call is when he needs money … No, and actually it’s the
best way really. That he’s, I’m glad that he’s happy and he’s fine and he’s self-sufficient.
Yeah.
You know, the school are looking after him. I mean I’m sure I would, you know, it would be awful if
he was on the phone crying every day that he missed me.
Oh yeah, devastating.
It would be awful, but you know, just a little bit more would be fine ( Jane, Interview 2).
As well as having her mother identity threatened, Jane also struggled throughout the year to
maintain a positive daughter identity, as she was unable to provide the support she felt she
should be giving to her elderly, ailing parent, also left in her home country. Jane’s focus
throughout the year was therefore more on maintaining those closely held family roles,
rather than on establishing herself in new roles while living abroad. As the year passed,
Jane’s ongoing struggle to maintain these identities was accompanied by a decreasing level
of interactional and cultural adjustment.

Social identities: becoming insiders and outsiders

Of the social identities mentioned in narratives, most common were nationality or cultural
identities that participants arrived with, and the expatriate or outsider identities that they
developed while in Sarawak. While national or cultural identities were spoken of most often
in the first interview when participants were detailing their pre-relocation stories, they
appeared to remain a stable aspect of participants’ self-concept throughout the year.
There was little evidence of participants assimilating or integrating any degree of a
Malaysian cultural identity. Rather, changes in social identity were more evident in relation
to becoming an expatriate.
The five participants who had lived abroad previously, tended to arrive in Sarawak
already speaking from the position of an expatriate social identity. Others, but not all,
developed an expatriate identity throughout the year. This provided them with a positive
insider social identity and sense of belonging, as would be expected by the application of
social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982; Tajfel and Turner, 1986).
While spouses who demonstrated a satisfactory level of identity adjustment by the end
of the year may have expressed a sense of being an outsider to the host country society in
early interviews, this ceased by the middle of the year as they also became increasingly well Adjustment
adjusted across interactional and cultural domains. In contrast, spouses who emerged narratives of
poorly adjusted overall, increasingly identified themselves as outsiders to the host country expatriate
society throughout the second half of the year. As George described the local population:
spouses
And they are also very ethnic based, so that they like to have a Chinese person talking to a Chinese
company, a Malay talking to a Malay company. But they don’t really know what they are doing
(George, Interview 4). 85
Personal identities: opportunities for modification and redefinition
Personal identities refer to those traits and behavioural characteristics which participants
use to describe themselves. Personal identities such as being entrepreneurial, creative,
travellers, sporting, analytical, and independent featured in participants’ narratives but
were not central to their sense of self. In some cases, however, personal identities became
increasingly salient when more central role identities became threatened. For example,
George arrived with a strong career identity. Having occupied managerial positions prior to
his relocation, he viewed himself as a change agent and spoke of himself as being highly
analytical. In the following passage George spoke about having only a small source of
income in Sarawak, but his wife expecting that he should pay restaurant bills. In this
conversation he repeatedly emphasised his analytical personal identity in a manner that
appeared to be a mechanism for compensating for his threatened career identity:
So it is interesting to see my observation, why do I have to pay when she has got all the money in
her wallet. You know, it is kind of like, WHY?
But you have never talked to her about it or …?
Oh I have told her, and one of the answers is “Oh it would be difficult to get a credit card in both of our
names” And I thought “Mm, but have you tried?” … And if I pushed it I could do something about it.
Yeah OK.
But ah, I would much rather observe and see what happens. Because if I push it and I change it then
I won’t see what happens (George, Interview 4).
As another example of changing saliency in personal identities, despite not having academic
qualifications that would make him eligible for a Sarawakian work permit, Sam sought
employment throughout the year. In what may be viewed as compensating for this threatened
workingman identity, Sam variously emphasised several different personal identities. This
included being an animal lover, traveller, and entrepreneur. Once he found steady employment
at the end of the year, he ceased to speak of himself in terms of these personal identities.

Outcomes of identity adjustment: change, maintenance, and loss

Overall, a pattern emerged that those expatriate spouses who were able to successfully
modify challenged identities, or to a greater extent redefine their threatened identities, were
better adjusted across identity, interaction, and cultural domains than those who tried to
maintain identities for which feedback was reduced or absent. A high need for redefinition
of identities was particularly evident in those cases where both career and spousal roles had
been threatened. For three such female participants, by the end of the year it was apparent
that the adjustment process was not yet complete, and they were still actively working
towards successful adjustment.
In Juliana’s story of a high degree of successful identity adjustment, her sense of self
changed over the course of a year in that she was able to redefine the meanings that she
attached to her homemaker and career role identities. In the first interview she indicated
having a strong career identity, wanting to find employment, and made it clear that she did
JGM not want to be “just a housewife”. After experiencing a loss of self-esteem, she viewed
5,1 herself as being unvalued as an under-employed teacher and reluctant housewife
throughout the first few months. By the end of the year, however, she had drawn on identity
feedback from relationships with her local church community and expatriate peers, to
redefine her new roles of part-time tutor and full-time homemaker as positive aspects of her
self-concept. While some women in other studies have reported feeling resentment at being
86 stereotyped by negative images of expatriate spouses (McNulty, 2012), Juliana had reframed
her situation in a positive manner:
And actually I don’t feel like I am a burden for my family … No, I don’t let my thoughts … even
think like this.
No.
Because I think I do a lot. Taking the children there, picking them up, it’s a job. Also working in the
tuition center two evenings, I have still my own a little bit of income you know ( Juliana, Interview 4).
In contrast, two female participants facing a high level of identity threat were unable to
adequately redefine their sense of self, and became increasingly poorly adjusted across all
domains by the end of the year. They both showed signs of depression and social
withdrawal, and faced tensions in their spousal relationships. Both had been unable to build
social support networks that could provide them with an alternative positive source of
identity feedback, resulting in a sense of identity loss. As Angel lamented at the end of the
year, when describing her life as now solely revolving around her kids, “sometimes it just
fades away”.
Rather than redefining or losing identities, some participants made smaller modifications
to their sense of self throughout the year. This was evident in both of the men’s cases, for
whom the maintenance of career identities was a dominant theme throughout their
narratives. George, for example, took on low-paid part-time work that allowed him just
enough feedback to maintain his career identity, although this became increasingly difficult
as the year passed and he became “terrified” of not working full-time again. During the
second half of the year, such participants demonstrated a decrease in self-esteem, while
adjustment in interaction and cultural domains also decreased.

Male spouses’ experiences of identity adjustment

Comparing male and female participants’ narratives, there is evidence that male spouses are
likely to find the redefinition of identity more difficult than females in locations where work
is not easily available for them. Of the three female participants who faced threats to career
identities, all three were able to reconstruct identities around motherhood, and/or
renegotiate spousal relationship roles. The redefinition of roles in the domestic sphere was a
feature of women’s narratives not accessible to the men, who were instead left trying to
maintain their career identities on scant feedback available from unofficial part-time or
voluntary work.
Unlike the men reported in Cole’s (2012) study, the male spouses in this study did make
specific mention of gender role concerns. Both spoke of enjoying the small independent
income working in Sarawak provided, but rather than the income it generated, obtaining
employment was more important for them to maintain their central career-related identities,
and to avoid being cast by their peers in a “kept man” role. As Sam described:
If you told someone what you did, they’d go oh “well that would take about so much of your time
up, and then” … So I just … I try to keep myself busy so that, so you are not just lounging about
really … I would like to work, and I think that’s what I am working to … rather than just … being a
kept man I suppose. I am trying to … get it so that we are probably on equal terms maybe, you
know so I am providing something rather than nothing.
It was interesting to note that the men were more hesitant than the women to admit the Adjustment
difficulties they faced in adjusting to being financially dependent on their partners, and narratives of
spoke little of their spousal relationships unless specifically questioned. In Sam’s second expatriate
interview, for example, his discomfort with being financially dependant dominated the
narrative, despite his claim early in the interview that his lack of personal income had been spouses
expected and “doesn’t really bother me that much”. That statement was contradicted by
the three separate mentions he later made of wanting to regain his independence. As he 87
repeated at the end of the interview:
Because like I say, it would be nice to just try to claw some of that independence back you know so
… actually, not having to rely on someone and give them something back as well you know.
By the end of one year, despite finally being offered work, Sam’s struggle to find legal
and worthwhile employment had lowered his self-esteem, and dampened his enthusiasm to
stay in Malaysia. His comment that wherever the couple went next would need to be a
place where he could find work, was indicative of the struggle he had faced in
maintaining his workingman identity. As such, Sam had already begun seeking future job
opportunities elsewhere.

Discussion
The results of this study support the notion that identity adjustment is an overarching
characteristic of the expatriate spouse adjustment experience. It further extends this
concept, by suggesting that when spouses are unable to easily find reinforcement of central
identities in the new relocation, varying degrees of reconstruction are required for
successful adjustment across not only an identity adjustment domain, but also in
interactional and cultural domains. That spouses who became most successfully adjusted
across all domains had managed to redefine or modify their identities in accordance with the
availability of feedback to support those identities, supports Shaffer and Harrison’s (2001)
observation that the development of new identities is more important than the maintenance
of existing identities. Cases of identity loss being experienced by spouses who struggled or
failed to maintain existing identities, provide new evidence that trying to maintain existing
identities in the face of an absence of opportunities for reinforcement of those identities is
likely to be damaging for spouses’ psychological well-being.
By inviting spouses to foreground the aspects of their lives that were of perceived
personal relevance, their relocation narratives demonstrate that multiple identities may need
to be adjusted, beyond the career identities and cultural identities that have often been the
focus in adjustment literature. This provides evidence for a broader range of personal,
social, and role identities that can be challenged or threatened by expatriation, and therefor
require a degree of adjustment, including redefining what it means to be a mother, child,
spouse, or independent person.
Throughout the narratives, opportunities to receive the identity-reinforcing feedback
required for modification or redefinition of identities arose from the development of new
social networks. It is beyond the scope of this paper to describe the ways in which such
social networks developed over time, but it may be concluded that for successful identity
adjustment, the breadth and depth of social interactions required to maintain, modify, or
redefine their identities will depend on the degree and range of identity threat experienced.
There is certainly more research needed to explore the relationship between the closely
interrelated dimensions of interactional and identity adjustment.
With only two male participants’ narratives to draw on in this study, conclusions
relating to male spouses’ experience must necessarily be tentative. Nevertheless, it is worth
comparing their experiences to those of men reported elsewhere. Cole (2012) reported that
male partners “do not appear to be concerned with their status as financially dependent on
JGM their wife” (p. 321). Had Sam and George been interviewed just once, or had they only
5,1 answered direct questioning in a semi-structured interview or survey, it could have been
similarly concluded that they were unconcerned with their financial dependence on their
partner. While both men denied at times that their non-traditional gendered role concerned
them, there were inconsistencies in their narratives, which indicate such statements should
not necessarily be taken at face value.
88 In both men’s narratives, career identities were clearly the most central and salient
identities to be threatened. While some women’s career identities were threatened, a broader
range of the women’s central identities were also threatened, including mother, daughter,
and spouse/partner identities. Despite a greater variety of threats, as has been predicted
elsewhere (Cole, 2012; Harvey and Wiese, 1998), the women seemed better able than the men
to reconstruct their identities, given that they also had access to a broader range of gendered
social roles, such as homemaker and mother, which could be adjusted to compensate for
threatened career identities. For the men then, obtaining employment was crucial to
maintain their central career-related identities, and to avoid being cast in a “kept man” role.
These observations support the suggestion that career-oriented male spouses will likely
have more difficulty than females in adjusting to interruptions in their career if they cannot
easily access employment in the host country (Cole, 2012; Harvey and Wiese, 1998).
Furthermore, the results indicate that for both male and female expatriate spouses for whom
a career identity is central and salient, the adjustment to not working will likely be difficult,
regardless of their enthusiasm for the relocation.
In regard to time frames for adjustment, participants requiring little adjustment to
identity achieved adjustment across all domains within six months to one year. For those
requiring a higher level of identity adjustment, by the end of the year the process was not
yet complete. This demonstrates that rather than trying to determine an average length of
time taken for the adjustment process, it may be more useful to accept that individuals will
adjust at varying rates, which may to some extent be predicted by considering the degree of
threat to central identities that relocation may pose.

Theoretical and practical contributions

This study contributes to discussion of theory, practice, and research methods related to the
field of global mobility. At a theoretical level, it provides a new way to view the construction
of identity adjustment in expatriate spouses, highlighting the degree of threat to central
identities presented by a relocation as a predictor of the amount of adjustment required by a
spouse. It reinforces the proposition that a change in career status can impact self-identity
(McNulty, 2012; Shaffer and Harrison, 2001), but also indicates that depending on an
individual’s pre-relocation story, there are many other personal, social, and role identities
that can be affected by a relocation.
In practical terms, the study can contribute to policy discussions in both governmental
and organisational spheres. While researchers have emphasised the need for employers to
support expatriate spouses in finding employment (Cole, 2011, 2012; McNulty, 2012), further
emphasis should also be placed on the need for government policies that will allow this.
The spouses in this study struggled less with finding employment, than they did with being
granted a work visa.
The study also demonstrates a need for those tasked with supporting expatriate spouses
to consider how social support programmes might help spouses construct a positive sense
of self. If suitable employment is not available for spouses for whom a career identity is
central, social support aimed at bolstering self-esteem through strengthening other positive
identities will be important. If feedback is available in the new location to support more
peripheral identities such as being entrepreneurial or creative, coaching participants to
pursue this may provide an easier path to adjustment that having to build completely new
identities to replace those that may be challenged or threatened. Whether encouraging such Adjustment
activities as voluntary work or involvement in clubs will be appropriate or not, will depend narratives of
on the individual’s pre-existing identity constructions. Opening conversations about one’s expatriate
sense of self may help in understanding an individual’s support needs.
At a methodological level, the study demonstrates the value of in-depth, longitudinal spouses
studies to explore change processes over time. The changes and contradictions that
emerged in the narratives collected over time would not likely have arisen by relying on 89
one-time interviews or cross-sectional surveys.

Limitations and suggestions for future research

The research presented analyses the experiences of a small number of participants.
A limitation of this approach is that findings cannot be generalised in the conventional
sense. However, it can provide sensitising concepts, which may help expand understandings
of the complex process of expatriate adjustment.
Interviewing in an open manner provided opportunities for participants to raise and
explore topics that they perceived to be of relevance to the adjustment experience. The
potential weakness in this approach was that it may have led to limited discussion of topics
that participants were either not cognisant of, or were not comfortable discussing. A further
potential limitation is that with the first author having insider status in the participants’
expatriate communities, a partial and tentative view of the expatriate spouse adjustment
experience may be offered.
These limitations in mind, several future research questions arise from the key findings:
RQ1. What are the most common expatriate spouse identities to be challenged or
threated by an international relocation, and how might these differ for people of
different gender, culture, and demographic backgrounds?
RQ2. How do expatriate spouses build and draw from available sources of social support
over time, to construct positive identities?
RQ3. Why do male spouses perform an attitude of not worrying about their loss of
breadwinner status? How might such performances support or hinder their
adjustment?
RQ4. How do expatriate couples renegotiate family roles during the adjustment period?
In developing their seminal model of expatriate spouse adjustment, Shaffer and Harrison
(2001) drew on theories focussing both on role identities and social identities to explain the
need for identity reestablishment they reported. The results of this study indicate that
employing multiple theories of identity to explore the topic of identity of adjustment should
be continued. In addition to using role-based and social-group-based theories, theories
of self-esteem (Cast and Burke, 2002), self-determination (Ryan and Deci, 2000), and
self-discrepancy (Higgins, 1987) may also contribute to further interpretation of the
multifaceted threats and challenges to identity faced by adjusting spouses.

Conclusion
In this paper, a range of threats, challenges, and changes to identity construction over time
have been documented, leading to an expanded conceptualisation of expatriate spouse
identity adjustment. Viewing identities as being threatened or challenged by stressors
perceived during an adjustment period, the multiple aspects of identity that can be impacted
by an international relocation have been highlighted. Differences between male and female
identity adjustment have also been discussed, indicating a difference in the range of
threatened identities experienced, and a difference in opportunities to reconstruct identities.
JGM These results can be applied in policy making, as well as in designing selection tools
5,1 and support programmes for expatriate spouses. While these results are offered as a
tentative and partial view of expatriate spouse adjustment, they offer new questions and
directions for future research aimed at creating a better understanding of expatriate
spouses’ experience.

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About the authors

Heidi Ellise Collins (PhD) is a Lecturer in Human Resource Management at the Swinburne University
of Technology’s Sarawak Campus, Malaysia. Her research interests lie in expatriate management and
human research ethics. Heidi Ellise Collins is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
[email protected]
Santina Bertone (PhD) is a Professor in Diversity Management at the Swinburne University of
Technology, Melbourne. She has researched and published on immigrants and employment,
immigrant women workers, productive diversity, multiculturalism, temporary migration, immigration
and workplace change, and doctoral education.

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