Reflecting on Lisa Macdougall Trailing Spouse Journey

Problem Statement

Lisa MacDougal does not want to be considered as a trailing spouse any longer. Lisa became frustrated, bored, and oppressive. She felt that her life was constrained, dull and meaningless. After her first fulltime job in over 10 years she had finally a sense of self. Lisa also was concerned about how this move was going to affect the children.

Analysis

The MacDougall Family: A Rare and Valuable Resource

More than 200 million people live and work in foreign nations. Therefore, hiring an expatriate represents an expensive investment for multinationals and they have to evade “expatriate failure “since most of the time, there tends to be a negative return on investment (ROI).

The MacDougall Family signifies an exceptional and valuable resource to a multinational. To begin with, Lachlan has the technical skills highly needed by multinationals, beyond his ability to perform in the required tasks, Lachlan has technical and managerial competencies, this makes him flexible to easily and quickly adapt to a new professional environment. Additionally, because of the many migrations of Lachlan, the MacDougall family has established some sort of mobility that can portrays them like a global family. This skill is highly researched for by multinationals. Additionally, there is another consideration for multinationals which is the cross-cultural suitability begging the questions; will the expatriate manage to adapt him in the new environment? Will his personality fit with the culture of the country? Multinationals also have to take into account the family concerns, such as the spouse and children’s feelings about an assignment abroad which can be positive or negative. Finally, another family concern is that the chances of the spouse not being able to obtain a work permit in the assigned host country are quite high.

In the case of the MacDougall family, the family enjoys the challenge of living in a new country, with new circumstances and initiating new communal and cultural contacts. They can easily adjust themselves to the foreign country and have cross-cultural suitability not forgetting rare intercultural competencies.

Reflecting on Lisa MacDougall Trailing Spouse Journey

In the beginning of Lisa husband’s career as an expatriate, she accepted the first move to Chicago with open arms. The both accepted the opportunity without hesitation. Because of such hast reaction, Lisa or Lachlan did not realize that she would not be able to work in the US, even though working overseas was a life-long dream. As this was fine for Lisa now, it soon came to realization that their stay in the US was going to be longer than expected because of their move to Philadelphia. So Lisa, with her career still on hold, decided to go back to school. Due to the approaching expiration of their visas they then move to Asia with their 11 month old daughter. This move seem to be an opportunity that would support both their careers and put them closer to family members. During this time they had a second child. Because of Lachlan highly sort after talents, an offer to relocate to China was given. This is when Lisa and Lachlan came to realize that considering this move was difficult. They now have a place called home (permanency), Lisa now has a promising career, and their two daughters is well adjusted to the environment and culture. Although Lisa had a heighten ambition to work overseas, she and Lachlan should have taken the time out to research what it was like to live and work in the US much like she has done with the move to China.

The Problems of Future Moves on the MacDougall Kids

• Schooling

School will always be quite a problem wherever the MacDougall family move to except in Singapore where they have spent the all their beginning years. They know of no other culture. Education is of great importance for children, especially children like Amelia and Emily who are always on the move. Yet great schools are limited. So it would be hard for them to get into a desirable school.

• Cultural Adjustment

Since Amelia and Emily only known Singapore as their everyday life and culture, this is a sense of who they are. Moving to a country with different a cultural may cause an encounter of culture adjustment problems. Those problems might include: language, culture shock, communication problems and so on.

• Psychological Problems

The constant move will definitely bring, more or less, some psychological problems to the children, be it negative or positive. For instance, the children might experience unresolved issues of grief resulting from the relentless of frequent goodbyes, which might have a

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