Entrepreneurial couples.

Enterpreneurial Couples

Married couples who work together-- "copreneurs" -- may be the wave of American business's future, say Frank and Sharan Barnett, authors of Working Together.

Business has long been biased against employees who are married to each other, but this attitude

could soon change as highly qualified workers become increasingly difficult to recruit and retain. Already, many businesses have "trailing spouse" programs that help the husband or wife of a new employee find a job if the couple must relocate. Hiring working couples as a team may simply be the next step.

New management policies such as flextime and job sharing have been implemented recently to help workers juggle the demands of family and work. Companies are increasingly recognizing that employees are "more than just workers and that their personal lives have an impact on their work lives," the Barnetts write.

This changing atmosphere reflects a shift in values in American business that will be carried over into the next decade, say the Barnett. "We believe that the 1990s will usher in a return to values that have long been absent in the American workplace, values centered on the family as an independent economic unit. The business community should not only look closely and seriously at copreneuring as a model for management; it should also move to incorporate working couples into their organizations."

Couples as co-workers offer many advantages, the Barnetts point out. For instance, contrary to the belief that married persons let personal conflicts interfere with their work, they more often utilize their relationship as an effective tool, bringing "higher levels of communication as well as shared goals and commitments to company objectives and thus [benefiting] the overall organization," say the authors.

Still, many working couples are dropping out of the corporate setting and starting up their own business enterprises, extending the entrepreneurial trend of the 1980s. The Barnetts interviewed 25 pairs of these copreneurs, couples who are working together in a variety of small businesses, from a pet hospital to a publishing firm to a husband-and-wife truck-driving and moving company.

One business trend that has been particularly conducive to co-preneuring is the recent boom in franchise operations. Franchises offer the support of a parent company with a proven tract record, so entrepreneurs going into business for themselves are not starting completely from scratch.

Working Together attempts to provide a guideline for entrepreneurial couples, using case studies to examine potential personal problems such as child care, maintaining privacy, and letting other people into the relationship.

The book also deals with the problems of starting up a business. For instance, many entrepreneurial couples have found difficulty obtaining start-up money from venture capitalists, who still consider married couples a poor risk -- an attitude the couples themselves find unrealistic.

As one partner of an entrepreneurial couple points out, "One of the biggest problems encountered by entrepreneurs who are not in business as coentrepreneurs is their spouse -- because in an entrepreneurial, high-pressure business you must work so hard and devote so much of your life to your venture that if your spouse is concerned about what time you get home for dinner, or how much you travel, or that you only think about your business, there exists a terrible negative in your business.

"With a married couple who are both working together, the goal is to be successful. And you're both working toward that goal all the time."

The Barnetts conclude that American business has much to gain from working with entrepreneurial couples. "As franchisees, employees, or commissioned sales representatives, couples working together with the common goal of success for both themselves and the enterprise with which they are affiliated represent a vast untapped potential in the American business community."

But beyond the benefits to business, working partnerships promote equality and mutual respect and support within the marriage, the authors point out. The Barnetts believe that copreneurs could be viewed as pioneers in male-female relations, who "are showing us the way to integrate the family, love, and work, and in the process are redefining the parameters of power and sharing it equally between them."

PHOTO : Frank and Sharan Barnett, co-authors of Working Together, are themselves an entrepreneurial couple: They own an advertising agency in California and are co-founders of the National Association of Entrepreneurial Couples.