Chapter 2: The Impact of Internat ional Business Trips on the Travelers and Their Spouses

The present chapter, which embeds business travel and crossover research, examines the effects of business trips, which are an ever increasing feature of globalization, on personal well-being and the family domain. In contrast to past research with its focus on the negative psychological and physical consequences of the stress of business traveling, the focus of this chapter is on the positive repercussions. Thus, the current study examined the antecedents of engagement¹ (vigor) and the crossover of engagement (vigor) from business travelers to their spouses and vice versa in a sample consisting of 275 business travelers and their working spouses. The business travelers (21% of them females) were required to travel abroad several times a year within the framework of their jobs.

We found that the number of trips of the travelers and their trip control as well as their business trips satisfaction and their work-family conflict were positively related to their engagement (vigor). For spouses, only their perception of travelers’ trip control and their work-family conflict were positively related to the engagement. Furthermore, we found a uni-directional crossover of engagement from the spouses to the business travelers. We discuss the implications of these findings and suggest avenues for future research.