A Spouse Is a Gift Bestowed: The Role of Spouse in the Manager’s Family-Related Career Sensemaking

Abstract

Increasingly blurring boundaries between work and nonwork domains stress the importance of studying the role of family in individual work-related decision-making. Recently, a new concept of ‘family-relatedness of work decisions’ was introduced which captures the extent to which family situation influences the individual decision-making so that the decision has a positive outcome for family. However, little effort has been made to empirically elaborate on it. Drawing on the sensemaking theory, we empirically explore this concept and enrich its understanding by bringing in the role of spouse. Using the data from 88 managers, going through a career transition period, in this paper we explore the role of spouse’s career involvement in their family-related sensemaking. Our findings contribute to the literature by showing the influential role of spouse’s career involvement taken together with family-career centrality and parent role identification in determining the degree to which managers frame their career d...