Forgotten partners of international assignments: Development and test of amodel of spouse adjustment

The authors developed and tested a model of spouse adjustment to inter-nati onal assignments in a sequence of qualitative and quantitative investigatio ns. From in-depth interviews with expatriate spouses, half of whom had eith er positive or negative experiences living abroad, the authors identified s everal potentially important sources of adjustment. These constructs were i ntegrated with others from identity theory and earlier research on expatria tes to develop a conceptual model of spouse adjustment. The model was teste d by collecting multisource questionnaire data from 221 international assig nee couples working in 37 countries. Correlation and regression analyses re vealed several important relationships between individual, interpersonal re lationship, and environmental sources of identity, and the adjustment of ex patriate spouses.