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Fairness und Teameffizienz
(2007)
Work–life balance is one of the challenges of a globalized world. The study described in this chapter aimed to identify the factors influencing the work–life balance of working mothers. Additionally, we will describe differences and similarities between the well-being and working styles of German and US-American working mothers. It is particularly difficult for mothers to be successful, because to do so, they must master the double burden of work and family. In this study, 320 working mothers were surveyed, 142 in Germany and 178 in the USA. It was found that the cultural concepts of work–life balance of these working mothers are comparable. Furthermore, differences in working styles were identified: US-Americans valued both well-being and work–life balance more strongly than Germans. In both cultures, younger mothers felt more burdened by work than older mothers. This may indicate that competences are learned with an increasing age, enabling a more successful mastery of challenges, even though an increasing age usually has a negative effect on health. The number of children, family status and education did not influence work–life balance. These findings are further discussed in this chapter.
Building on Hofstede's finding that individualism and social hierarchy are incompatible at the societal level, the authors examined the relationship between individualism-collectivism and orientations toward authority at the individual level. In Study 1, authoritarianism was related to three measures of collectivism but unrelated to three measures of individualism in a U.S. sample (N = 382). Study 2 used Triandis's horizontal-vertical individualism-collectivism framework in samples from Bulgaria, Japan, New Zealand, Germany, Poland, Canada, and the United States (total N = 1,018). Both at the individual level and the societal level of analysis, authoritarianism was correlated with vertical individualism and vertical collectivism but unrelated to horizontal collectivism. Horizontal individualism was unrelated to authoritarianism except in post-Communist societies whose recent history presumably made salient the incompatibility between state authority and self-determination.