Fam Proc 18:79-86, 1979 The Corporate Executive Wife's Coping Patterns in Response to Routine Husband-Father Absence PAULINE GROSSENBACHER BOSS, Ph.D. a HAMILTON I. McCUBBIN, Ph.D. b GARY LESTER, M.A. c a Assistant Professor of Family Studies, Child and Family Studies Program, School of Family Resources and Consumer Sciences, University of Wisconsin. b Associate Professor, Chairman, Department of Family Social Science, University of Minnesota. c Research Psychologist, Center for Prisoner of War Studies, Naval Health Research Center, San Diego, California. The routine absence of corporate executive husband/fathers in intact families is a variation of father absence. Though not prolonged, frequent exits and reentries may stress the family system. To determine how nonclinical family members deal with routine father absence, a coping inventory was administered to 66 corporate wives. Factor analysis revealed wives coped with the stress of routine father absence by (a) fitting into the corporate lifestyle; (b) developing self; and (c) establishing independence. Though a pilot study, findings offer empirical support for a premise more traditionally accepted by family therapists than by family sociologists: Individual psychological variables need to be considered along with systems variables in the development of family stress theory. Because two major institutions, the corporation and the family, compete for the husband/father, 1 there is growing interest on both sides to identify coping behaviors and family lifestyles that allow for the comparability and healthy survival of both institutions as well as of the members within. From a systems perspective, the routine absence of the corporate executive husband/father is a stressful event for the family, since his exits and returns require constant change in family system boundaries and role assignments. Though his absences are not as prolonged as in military separation, the corporate executive as a family member is gone long and often enough to require frequent reorganization of the family system. Though this constant state of flux is potentially highly stressful, some wives and families manage very well with this lifestyle. They may in fact cope so well that they deny being stressed at all. It is these coping wives who are of interest in this study. Objectives and Rationale In accordance with Wesley Burr's theoretical synthesis (5), a key variable in family stress research is Hansen's (10) family "vulnerability to stress." Burr's basic premise is that "the greater the adaptability of a family, the less the vulnerability to stress and vice versa" (6, p. 396). Based on this principle, the overall objectives of this study are (a) to investigate the coping patterns utilized by a unique group of functioning, i.e., nonclinical, corporate wives whose families deal with the stress of routine husband/father absence, and (b) to relate the findings of this study to the theoretical model of family stress formulated by Burr (5). The identification of these patterns of adaptation would produce important data regarding decrease in family vulnerability to stress within this sample. The outcome of the continuous struggle between the corporation and the family has been the subject of much speculation in popular media but of little systematic study. Even with an intuitive grasp of the more obvious coping behaviors family members employ in response to repeated family separations (such as keeping busy, going to school, family outings, and investing in children), the range of these patterns remains unclear. Certainly the emotional and social adaptations spouses and families make in response to repeated separation-shave impact upon the health and stability of family members and more indirectly upon the executive's performance and promotion within the corporation (22). The identification of coping repertoires families employ under the repeated stress of separations has important implications both for corporate and personnel managers who seek to provide preventive supports for family life and for family health specialists who counsel troubled corporate families. Review of Literature Coping, defined here as strategies for dealing with stress (17), has been a concept of considerable interest to behavioral scientists attempting to understand the variations of life in the corporate family. However, the majority of investigations touching on the subject of the corporate family and coping behaviors have tended to emphasize maladjustment, particularly _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1