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Corporate transfers : the personality determinants of a successful transfer candidate Goldberg, Valerie Patricia

Abstract

Numerous benefits and costs associated with corporate transfers were explored. Substantive organizational, personal and familial costs emerging as a result of an unsuccessful transfer experience were addressed. The financial nature of relocation compensation has not been successful in rectifying the emergence of organizational and human costs arising as a result of an unsuccessful transfer experience nor has it been successful in counteracting the current anti-mobility trend. It was proposed that the organizational, personal and familial costs may be minimized through the adoption of a selection program which not only places emphasis upon the needs of the organization but which also considers the personality traits of the transfer candidate and his or her spouse. Central to this proposal was the supposition that the personality correlates of the executive would have a direct bearing upon the favourableness of the executive's attitude toward transfers in general and that the personality correlates of the spouse would have an influential effect upon the executive's attitude. A group of 164 managers and their spouses who had been transferred at least once by their present employer served as the sample. The study investigated hypothesized relationships between the favourableness of the executive's attitude toward transfers in general and a number of personality variables. These variables included the executive's age as well as his scores on job-involvement, company commitment, authoritarianism social extraversion-introversion and locus of control and the spouse's scores on authoritarianism, social extraversion-introversion and locus of control. Correlational analysis was employed to analyze the data. The results did not lend conclusive support to the hypothesized relationships and thus the personality profile of an executive who would possess a favourable attitude toward transfers in general did not emerge. Methodological shortcomings were explored and an alternative methodology for the identification of an executive who would display post-transfer satisfaction was suggested.

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