Cross-National Variation in Work and Family Roles

A key question that is important in cross-national comparative studies is the extent to which work or family roles differ across countries. For example, a study of five European countries found cross-national differences in beliefs about how parents should divide household responsibilities for breadwinning (i.e., financial support of the family) relative to responsibility for homemaking and caregiving, with greater adherence to the traditional male breadwinner/female homemaker household division of labor in Poland, more support for equal sharing of both work and family roles in Sweden, and Denmark, Finland, and Germany falling in between the two extremes with regard to preferred household arrangements (Edlund & Oun, Reference Edlund and Oun2016). Edlund and Oun explained that these differing attitudes about work and family roles were consistent with the countries’ WF-related policies and argued that policies “may influence people’s ideas about proper and desirable behavior of men and women in the realms of paid work and childcare” (p. 152). For example, the Nordic countries’ policies, such as provision of public childcare and lengthy paid parental leaves, are available to both mothers and fathers, and support the “dual-earner family model.” This contrasts with policies in continental Europe that provide generous child support and encourage mothers with young children to give up their paid work to care for their children, thus supporting the “traditional male breadwinner family model” (Edlund & Oun, Reference Edlund and Oun2016, pp. 153–154).

In addition, Corrigall and Konrad (Reference Corrigall and Konrad2006) found that country cultural values about the division of household labor were related to the types of jobs women preferred, and interpreted their findings as reflecting differences in women’s views of their work roles across the fourteen countries in this study. The authors reasoned that women’s attitudes about the household division of labor would be consistent with the extent that their country culture reflected gender egalitarianism, based on the Project Globe research. The Project Globe research identified nine dimensions of culture, and developed measures of both cultural practices, that capture “how things are” and cultural values, that capture “how things should be” (Hanges & Dickson, Reference Hanges, Dickson, House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman and Gupta2004, p. 125).

Corrigall and Konrad’s study used the Project Globe gender egalitarianism dimension of country culture, defined as “the degree to which … a society minimizes gender role differences while promoting gender equality,” (House & Javidan, Reference House, Javidan, House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman and Gupta2004, p. 12), and measured this cultural dimension with country gender egalitarian practice (GEP) scores (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, Reference House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman and Gupta2004). The authors predicted that GEP scores would be related to mothers’ preferences for various job characteristics (Corrigall & Konrad, Reference Corrigall and Konrad2006). There was some support for these predictions as women who were thought to have primary household/caregiving responsibility (based on low country GEP scores) valued jobs that offered security and flexibility, suggesting that they wanted work that would accommodate their family responsibilities, whereas women who were thought to share work and family roles with their partners (based on high GEP scores) valued jobs that offered high income, reflecting their shared responsibility for providing family income (Corrigall & Konrad, Reference Corrigall and Konrad2006).

These two studies illustrate how both cultural and structural factors may be relevant to understanding cross-national differences in normative beliefs about women’s and men’s WF roles. Moreover, cross-national variations in beliefs about WF roles have implications for women’s and men’s careers and employment patterns, all of which are important themes for this chapter.

WF and Gender-Related Cultural Values

In this section, we will review research that illustrates how country WF-related cultural values can be used to explain cross-national variation in the WF interface and careers, beginning with relationships of country culture to individual-level WF and career variables. We first review qualitative research in which the authors use cultural values, such as collectivism, to interpret cross-national differences in WF and career variables, but these studies do not include direct measures of culture. We also provide examples of research using quantitative measures of culture, such as country scores representing various cultural dimensions taken from Project GLOBE (House et al., Reference House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman and Gupta2004), and tests of multi-level relationships between these country culture measures and various individual-level WF and career-related variables. In addition, we include two studies that measure gender egalitarianism with objective measures of country gender equality, which prior research has shown to be positively related to similar measures based on cultural values (Emrich, Denmark, & Den Hartog, Reference Emrich, Denmark, Den Hartog, House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman and Gupta2004).

WF conflict. Much of the cross-national literature about WF roles focuses on strain resulting from the inability to meet the demands of work and family responsibilities (Goode, Reference Goode1960), and various types of WF conflict, such as time-based, strain-based, and behavioral conflicts (Greenhaus & Beutell, Reference Greenhaus and Beutell1985), with a frequent focus on women’s careers. Cultural values related to WF issues or gender are often used to explain cross-national differences in work and family roles and conflict. For example, Peus and Traut-Mattausch (Reference Peus and Traut-Mattausch2008) compared perspectives of women in upper middle-level managerial positions in Germany and the United States and found that a majority of the German women viewed their work responsibilities as incompatible with motherhood and some had even decided to remain childless to focus on their careers, whereas the American women generally did not view their careers as incompatible with motherhood. These cross-national differences were attributed to West German cultural beliefs that children are harmed when non-family members care for them. In contrast, the American managers were less likely to share these concerns. Also, the American managers were more successful at combining their managerial and motherhood roles in part because they had access to a variety of supports from employers and other people, including non-family members. However, women from both countries mentioned prejudice against mothers as a barrier to career advancement for female managers.

Peus and Traut-Mattausch’s (Reference Peus and Traut-Mattausch2008) research also suggested that there was some alignment between country cultural values regarding whether women should combine motherhood and managerial work roles and employers’ provision of WF supports for working mothers. For example, the female managers from the United States described several types of organizational WF supports, including flexible career paths and supportive supervisors, which helped them combine their managerial careers with the responsibilities of motherhood, but these types of employer supports were generally not available in West Germany (Peus & Traut-Mattausch, Reference Peus and Traut-Mattausch2008).

In a related study, Yang, Chen, Choi, and Zou (Reference Yang, Chen, Choi and Zou2000), tested predictions that collectivistic cultural values influence employees’ perspectives on their work and family roles and whether they perceive WF conflict. Their results showed that the Chinese employees were willing to sacrifice time with their families for work because they viewed this personal sacrifice as benefiting their families, which is consistent with the Chinese collectivistic cultural values that prioritize what is best for the family and other collectives above personal concerns. Yang et al. contrasted this perspective with the individualistic cultural values in the United States, where priority is given to an individual’s personal concerns, which can include his or her family, and sacrificing family time for work is viewed as a failure to care for their families. Similarly, a study of professional women in Hong Kong and Singapore found that in these cultures young women were expected to work in order to earn money to help support their families (Thein, Austen, Currie, & Lewin, Reference Thein, Austen, Currie and Lewin2010). Thus, these studies suggest that how work and family roles are viewed can affect perceptions of WF conflict as well as prioritization of work and family roles.

Although there are some differences in specific research questions and details, the findings from these studies generally support the idea that country cultural values and norms are useful for understanding variations in how work and family roles are perceived as well as whether these roles conflict. The specific findings about perceptions of work roles and family roles offer insights about reasons for WF conflicts, with important implications for careers, and especially women’s careers after they become mothers.

WF facilitation. In contrast to the focus of these studies on negative outcomes, such as WF conflict, other WF role theories, such as WF enrichment, expansionist, and facilitation theories, suggest that engagement in multiple roles can have positive outcomes (e.g., Barnett & Hyde, Reference Barnett and Hyde2001; Greenhaus & Powell, Reference Greenhaus and Powell2006). These theories posit that engagement in both family and work roles may result in enhanced energy, mental health, and other resources that can facilitate rather than interfere with performance within and across different types of roles (e.g., Barnett & Hyde, Reference Barnett and Hyde2001; Greenhaus & Powell, Reference Greenhaus and Powell2006). For example, research in the Netherlands found evidence that women reported higher levels of WF facilitation than their male counterparts, which was attributed to men’s requirement to work whereas women were more likely to be working because they chose to do so rather than due to financial necessity (van Steenbergen, Ellemers, & Mooijaart, Reference van Steenbergen, Ellemers and Mooijaart2007). Similarly, research in Great Britain found that many women valued their work because it provided stimulation, self-esteem, financial independence, and “a much-needed break from childcare and the isolation of the domestic sphere” (Wattis, Standing, & Yerkes, Reference Wattis, Standing and Yerkes2013, p. 12).

Lyness and Judiesch (Reference Lyness and Judiesch2008) carried out a multilevel study to investigate the relationship between WL balance and potential for career advancement, based on multisource ratings of close to 10,000 managers working in 33 countries. WL balance was defined as “achieving satisfying experiences in all life domains (which requires that) personal resources such as energy, time, and commitment be well distributed across domains” (Kirchmeyer, Reference Kirchmeyer, Cooper and Rousseau2000, p. 81). Specifically, the authors tested competing theory-based predictions about whether WL balance, measured with managers’ self-ratings, would have a positive, negative, or no relationship to career advancement potential, based on supervisors’ ratings. They also tested whether these relationships were similar in magnitude for men and women, and examined country gender egalitarianism (measured with Project Globe GEP scores) as a potential moderating variable.

The results revealed a significant three-way interaction showing that the relationship between WL balance and career advancement potential differed depending on whether the manager was a man or woman, with country gender egalitarian culture as an additional moderator. In high GEP countries, such as the Nordic region (represented by Denmark, Finland, and Sweden), there was a positive relationship between managers’ self-rated WL balance and their supervisors’ ratings of career advancement potential for women and a non-significant relationship for men. This pattern was reversed in low GEP countries, such as the Confucian Asian region (i.e., Hong Kong, Japan, People’s Republic of China, Singapore, and South Korea), where there was a positive relationship for men and no relationship for women (Lyness & Judiesch, Reference Lyness and Judiesch2008). The authors used single-country research from these regions to interpret the three-way interaction. In the Netherlands (a relatively high GEP country), prior research found that women who worked voluntarily reported higher levels of WF facilitation than men (van Steenbergen et al., Reference van Steenbergen, Ellemers and Mooijaart2007), which may help to explain why WL balance had a positive relationship to career advancement potential ratings for women but not men. Also, studies in India (a low GEP country with traditional gender norms) found that men have more discretion about participation in family roles than women; the authors suggested that men’s family involvement may help to restore them and result in more WF facilitation than was the case for their female counterparts who had to handle traditional family responsibilities in addition to their work roles (Aryee, Srinivas, & Tan, Reference Aryee, Srinivas and Tan2005; Larson, Verma, & Dworkin, Reference Larson, Verma and Dworkin2001), which may help to explain why WL balance had a positive relationship to career advancement potential ratings for men but not women.

Moreover, Lyness and Judiesch (Reference Lyness and Judiesch2008) found a positive relationship between WL balance and career advancement potential when both ratings were made by supervisors, which raises questions about the basis for supervisors’ perceptions of their subordinates’ WL balance as well as whether these perceptions influenced overall perceptions of their subordinates’ career advancement potential. These questions led to Lyness and Judiesch’s (Reference Lyness and Judiesch2014) follow-up study, based on self-ratings and supervisors’ ratings of WL balance for 40,000 managers working in 36 countries. In this study, the authors examined ratee gender differences in both sets of ratings, and also tested country gender egalitarianism as a potential moderator of gender differences in WL balance ratings.

Lyness and Judiesch (Reference Lyness and Judiesch2014) applied ideas from Eagly and colleagues’ cross-cultural extensions of social role theory (Eagly & Wood, Reference Eagly, Wood, Van Lange, Kruglanski and Higgins2012; Wood & Eagly, Reference Wood and Eagly2002) and hypothesized that country gender egalitarian cultural context would influence the extent that women and men conform to traditional gender-specific breadwinner/caretaker norms, and that other people’s perceptions of women and men engaging in these normative behaviors would in turn influence beliefs about women’s and men’s attributes. These theoretical ideas are the basis for the authors’ predictions that country gender egalitarian cultural context would influence supervisors’ perceptions about gender differences in their managerial subordinates’ WL balance. However, because self-ratings were assumed to reflect individual circumstances, it was less clear whether there would also be gender differences in self-ratings of WL balance, or whether gender differences would be related to the country context.

Lyness and Judiesch (Reference Lyness and Judiesch2014) measured country gender egalitarianism with two types of measures: cultural value measures and egalitarian practices measures, intended to reflect actual gender equality. Cultural values were measured with Project GLOBE gender egalitarian values (GEV; i.e., “should be” scores; House et al., Reference House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman and Gupta2004) and a composite measure based on World Values Survey items (WVS v.20090901, 2009) that have been used to measure patriarchal norms and values in prior research (Seguino, Reference Seguino2007). Cultural practices were measured with Project Globe GEP scores and the Gender Inequality Index (GII), which is a broad, composite measure of gender disparities in important areas of life, such as women’s (compared to men’s) access to higher education and jobs, and women’s representation in parliamentary institutions (United Nations Development Programme, 2010).

The ratee gender difference in overall self-ratings of WL balance (fixed effects across all countries) did not differ significantly by gender, and the variation in gender differences across countries (random effects) was also non-significant. In contrast, there was significant cross-national variation in ratee gender differences based on the supervisors’ ratings. Notably, the magnitude of the gender gaps in the supervisors’ ratings was moderated by country-level gender egalitarianism, with larger gender gaps in less egalitarian cultures, as measured by both of the cultural value measures and the objective GII measure of actual gender disparities. Specific findings showed that in low egalitarian countries, supervisors gave female managers lower ratings of WL balance than their male counterparts, whereas supervisors’ ratings of female and male subordinates were similar in more egalitarian countries. It is also notable that only WL balance ratings of female subordinates differed depending on country culture; ratings of male subordinates were uniformly high regardless of country context.

The pattern of findings suggested that supervisors’ perceptions reflected societal gender stereotypes and norms. A possible interpretation of supervisors’ lower ratings of women in low egalitarian countries is that they reflect doubts about women’s ability to balance work with traditional caretaker responsibilities, or less acceptance of female managers in the workplace, as compared with greater workplace acceptance and support of female managers in more egalitarian cultures. These results, combined with Lyness and Judiesch’s (Reference Lyness and Judiesch2008) findings that supervisors’ ratings of their subordinates’ WL balance were positively related to ratings of career advancement potential, raise concerns about the negative implications for female managers’ career opportunities in low egalitarian countries.

Additional insight into the effects of country gender disparities is provided by Lyness and Kropf’s (Reference Lyness and Kropf2005) study that examined relationships of the United Nations’ GII measure to two types of organizational WF supports (i.e., supportive WF cultures and flexible work arrangements; FWA), which in turn were predicted to relate to managers’ self-reported WF balance, based on surveys of managers in twenty European countries. Their specific results differed depending on whether managers worked in domestic organizations or multinational corporations. For managers who worked in domestic organizations, country GII was negatively related to supportive organizational WF cultures, which in turn had a positive relationship to managers’ WF balance. For managers who worked in multinational corporations, GII in the headquarters’ country was negatively related to organizational FWA, and the local country GII was negatively related to supportive WF culture and WF balance, and organizational FWA was positively related to managers’ WF balance.

These findings linking country GII, organizational WF supports, and employees’ WF balance offer a possible explanation about why cultural values are useful for explaining the employee WF interface and career outcomes in some of the other studies we reviewed. Organizational WF supports are generally thought to facilitate employees’ ability to manage their work and family roles, with implications for their careers. Lyness and Kropf’s (Reference Lyness and Kropf2005) research showed that GII was negatively related to organizational WF support (FWA and supportive cultures), and organizational WF supports sometimes mediated the relationships between GII and WF balance. These findings also suggest that managers who work in less egalitarian countries are thus less likely to have access to organizational WF supports, which is a possible explanation for why they might have lower WF balance, as was found in this study. Also, Lyness and Kropf’s (Reference Lyness and Kropf2005) study did not find gender differences in managers’ self-reported WF balance, which is consistent with the overall non-significant gender differences in managers’ self-ratings of WL balance reported in Lyness and Judiesch (Reference Lyness and Judiesch2014), which was based on a broader sample of thirty-six countries and included non-European countries.

In addition, Lyness and Kropf’s (Reference Lyness and Kropf2005) results showing a negative relationship between country GII and organizational WF support may help to explain why supervisors rated women in low egalitarian countries lower in WL balance than their male counterparts. Because of the more traditional household division of labor in low egalitarian countries, women may have greater need than men for organizational WF supports, but Lyness and Kropf’s (Reference Lyness and Kropf2005) results showed that organizational WF supports were less likely to be provided in low gender egalitarian countries than in higher gender egalitarian countries, which is consistent with supervisors’ lower ratings of women’s (vs. men’s) WL balance in low egalitarian countries (Lyness & Judiesch, Reference Lyness and Judiesch2014).

Taken together, the studies in this section suggest that there are cross-national differences in employees’ relative involvement in work and family roles that have implications for their careers, and that country-level contextual variables reflecting WF-related cultural values and related objective measures of gender disparities can help to explain these differences. Although not directly measured in the qualitative research, collectivistic versus individualistic cultural values were also used to explain cross-national differences in mothers’ relative involvement in work and family roles. In addition, there is quantitative evidence, based on multisource ratings in thirty-three countries, that GEP scores moderated the relationship of WL balance to career advancement potential (Lyness & Judiesch, Reference Lyness and Judiesch2008); and that gender egalitarian cultural values and objective gender disparities (GII) help to explain supervisors’ ratings of their female managerial subordinates’ WL balance (Lyness & Judiesch, Reference Lyness and Judiesch2014). Also, Lyness and Kopf’s (Reference Lyness and Kropf2005) study found that organizational WF supports may mediate and help to explain the relationships between country cultural values and workers’ WF and career outcomes.

WF and Gender-Related Structural Factors

In this section we review research that draws on cross-national differences in WF-related structural variables, including economic, social, and public policy (legal) structures, to explain WF and career-related outcomes. Country structural characteristics have been used to explain organizational-level outcomes, such as organizations’ provision of WF supports, as well as individual-level WF and career outcomes. However, much of the research that investigates country-level structural variables examines relationships to macro-level outcomes, such as employment patterns of mothers.

Lyness, Gornick, Stone, and Grotto’s (Reference Lyness, Gornick, Stone and Grotto2012) quantitative research illustrates the important role of country-level structural variables. Based on nationally representative samples of over ten thousand employees from twenty-one countries, they tested a model linking country-level structural variables to organizational WF supports, which in turn were related to employees’ WF conflict and work attitudes. Specifically, Lyness and colleagues investigated several country-level structural variables, including economic structures (i.e., GDP per capita), legal structures (i.e., social welfare expenditure as a proportion of GDP and union coverage), and social structures (i.e., women’s labor force participation rate), all of which were predicted to have positive relationships to organizational WF support, operationalized as workers’ control over their work time and schedules. Thus, this study extended prior research based on the well-known welfare state regime taxonomy developed by Esping-Andersen (Reference Esping-Andersen1990) by specifying and testing quantitative measures of specific country characteristics in order to clarify the basis for differences across countries rather than relying on country clusters. Lyness and colleagues’ study also investigated the contention that employees’ control over their working time is a critical WF support (Berg, Appelbaum, Bailey, & Kalleberg, Reference Berg, Appelbaum, Bailey and Kalleberg2004; Kelly, Moen, & Tranby, Reference Kelly, Moen and Tranby2011) by testing predictions that workers’ control would relate negatively to strain-based WF conflict and positively to work attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction and organizational commitment).

Most of the micro-level individual characteristics (e.g., gender, age, living with a partner, and education) and job characteristics (e.g., working full-time, being self-employed, high earnings, and promotion opportunities) had the predicted relationships to control over schedule and work hours, based on prior research, most of which was conducted in the United States. Notably, gender was significantly related to control over schedules and work hours, and the results showed that women had less control than men over both their work schedules and hours; also, the relationship of gender to work schedules was invariant across countries.

In addition, controlling for the micro-level variables, each of the macro-level structural variables was related to one or more type of control, but some relationships were not in the predicted directions. For example, country GDP per capita was associated with more schedule control, but less control over work hours, as reflected in working more hours than desired (Lyness et al., Reference Lyness, Gornick, Stone and Grotto2012). Also, women’s labor force participation had a positive relationship to working more hours than desired, such that countries with higher female labor force participation rates were also more likely to be characterized by a general desire (i.e., across female and male workers) for fewer working hours, indicating that workers in these countries had less control over work hours than workers in countries with lower female participation rates. The authors interpreted this finding as suggesting that in these countries the general desire for fewer work hours may reflect an attempt to balance work with family by both women and men (Lyness et al., Reference Lyness, Gornick, Stone and Grotto2012). Also, Lyness and colleagues (Reference Lyness, Gornick, Stone and Grotto2012) found that giving workers’ control over their schedules and work hours generally had positive outcomes, as measured by workers’ reduced WF conflict and better work attitudes.

However, there were several critical gender gaps, all of which disadvantaged women with implications for their WF interface and careers. Specifically, women had less control over their work schedules than their male colleagues, and they were more likely to report overwork (i.e., working more hours than desired, indicating a lack of control over their work hours). Thus, women had less control over their hours and schedules even though they may have greater need for control, as women are juggling work with a larger share of family and household responsibilities. Women’s unmet need for control helps to explain why gender also moderated relationships of overwork to all three individual outcomes, with women reporting more negative outcomes than their male counterparts at comparable levels of control. These results suggest that lack of control over their work schedules and hours was more difficult for women than men. Moreover, the study found that lack of schedule control had a positive relationship to strain-based WF conflict for female workers, but this relationship was not significant for men (Lyness et al., Reference Lyness, Gornick, Stone and Grotto2012).

Thus, Lyness et al. (Reference Lyness, Gornick, Stone and Grotto2012) found that women were less likely than men to experience the positive work outcomes associated with control over work schedules and hours, and the authors pointed out that these findings help to explain why women are more likely than men to work part-time in order to gain flexibility and hours that fit their family responsibilities, even though they may have to settle for less desirable jobs. These findings and implications are thus consistent with macro-level studies showing that motherhood is often associated with reduced hours as well as career penalties in compensation and occupational stature, and examples of these macro-level studies will be discussed in the following section.

Public policy structures. As mentioned earlier, there are country-level legal structures that provide various types of WF-related public policies intended to support workers with family responsibilities. Although the generosity and specific provisions show considerable variation across countries, most industrialized countries have implemented three types of WF policies: (1) job-protected dependent-care leaves, (2) policies that increase FWA, such as mandated provisions for reduced hours or flexible schedules, and (3) publicly financed childcare (Hegewisch & Gornick, Reference Hegewisch and Gornick2011). Other supportive WF policies include centralized collective bargaining agreements that protect workers’ earnings and work conditions, and policies regarding taxation of dual-earning couples that can affect couples’ career decisions. These policies are associated with gender egalitarian cultures and represent societal efforts to aid families and support women’s labor market participation (Mandel & Semyonov, Reference Mandel and Semyonov2005). Also, as described above, country policies may influence organizational policies, which in turn can influence employees’ individual-level WF and career outcomes (Lyness et al., Reference Lyness, Gornick, Stone and Grotto2012; Lyness & Kropf, Reference Lyness and Kropf2005).

For example, a study by den Dulk, Groeneveld, Ollier-Malaterre, and Valcour (Reference Den Dulk, Groeneveld, Ollier-Malaterre and Valcour2013) tested relationships of both country WF-related policies and cultural values to organizational WF supports, based on data from over nineteen thousand organizations in nineteen European countries. They found evidence that both country cultural values, reflecting the centrality of work, and government WF policies, measured as public spending or regulations supporting childcare, parental leave, and employee rights to change their work hours for WF reasons, were related to organizational WF supports, measured as provision of three types of WF supports beyond statutory requirements. Their specific findings indicated that country-level WF supports were positively related to employer-provided FWA, parental leaves, and childcare, whereas cultural centrality of work was negatively related to FWA (den Dulk et al., Reference Den Dulk, Groeneveld, Ollier-Malaterre and Valcour2013). Thus, these findings, showing that country WF policies influenced employers to provide additional WF supports, would amplify access to WF benefits for employees in these supportive countries as compared to employees living in countries where WF supports were not provided (den Dulk et al., Reference Den Dulk, Groeneveld, Ollier-Malaterre and Valcour2013).

In contrast, Gregory and Milner (Reference Gregory and Milner2011) studied WF supports from the perspective of fathers in France and the United Kingdom. The study examined country-level WL policies, organizational WL policies, and cultural norms relating to fatherhood, and used this information to explain differences in how fathers managed WL and career issues in the two countries. The authors highlighted the fact that WL issues are challenging for fathers due to organizational norms that still reflect the traditional household division of labor, with assumptions that women are caretakers and men are breadwinners. Although both France and the United Kingdom had implemented the European Union WL policies, such as parental leaves, the countries differed in their working time regulations; France limited the work week to thirty-five hours, whereas the United Kingdom gave employees the right to request a reduction in work hours to accommodate WF responsibilities. However, the study found that in the United Kingdom most requests for reduced hours were made by mothers rather than fathers, which is consistent with the traditional organizational assumptions that women’s careers were viewed as secondary, whereas men’s careers were thought to be the primary source of family income.

Notably, the findings showed that the shorter thirty-five-hour work weeks in France gave fathers, particularly those in non-management positions, more time with their families. However, in the United Kingdom, fathers often had to work long hours to make up for their wives’ reduced income because these mothers had taken advantage of the United Kingdom’s policies allowing them to reduce their work hours for WF reasons (Gregory & Milner, Reference Gregory and Milner2011).

Organizational implementation of WF policies also differed by country and exacerbated the differences in fathers’ WF support. In France the WF and working time regulations tended to be formally regulated by organizational human resource departments, whereas the implementation was more informal in the United Kingdom where supervisors were given discretion about granting requests, which tended to limit fathers’ access to WF supports.

Thus, the research suggests that organizations play an important mediating role in the relationships between well-intentioned country-level WF policies and individual fathers’ WL balance. Also, Gregory and Milner (Reference Gregory and Milner2011) noted that fathers in the United Kingdom would like more flexibility and balance, as shown by their use of paternity leaves, and programs that were offered universally, as when FWA was offered to a work team. Thus, the findings illustrate unintended consequences of organizational processes that undermined fathers’ family involvement despite well-intentioned WF policies in the United Kingdom. These results also suggest that it is important to ensure that organizational WF-related assumptions and implementation of WF policies do not undermine employees’ access to WF supports, and that access to these critical benefits does not vary by employee gender.

Macro-level relationships between public policies and labor force outcomes. In this section, we review related research that examines relationships of country-level public policies to macro-level career outcomes, such as labor force participation rates, wages, promotions, and career opportunities. These studies are relevant to the findings reviewed above as the results illustrate how women’s labor force participation and outcomes differ depending on whether or not they are mothers. As discussed above, working mothers may have difficulty managing their work and family roles when they do not have access to national- and organizational-level WF-related supports.

However, the macro-level research discussed below indicates that there are often both positive and negative career tradeoffs for women when they do have access to various types of WF public policy supports. Country-level WF supports, such as paid leaves and publicly funded childcare, have been shown to increase women’s labor force participation (Gornick & Meyers, Reference Gornick and Meyers2003; Mandel and Semyonov, Reference Mandel and Semyonov2006). However, gender segregation is higher in welfare state countries that provide these benefits (i.e., Nordic and Continental Europe) than in liberal market countries (i.e., the United States, Canada, and Australia). Also, in countries offering WF supports, women with young children are more likely to work in lower-paying, female-typed (i.e., held mostly by women), service sectors jobs, and to work part-time (Mandel & Semyonov, Reference Mandel and Semyonov2006).

Mandel and Semyonov (Reference Mandel and Semyonov2006) used data from twenty-two industrialized countries to examine the relationship between national WF policy supports, women’s employment patterns, and gender inequality in occupational status. The authors measured country-level WF supports with a “Welfare State Intervention Index,” a composite index that was developed by Mandel and Semyonov (Reference Mandel and Semyonov2005) based on each country’s number of fully paid weeks of maternity leave, the percentage of preschool children attending publicly funded daycare, and the percentage of the workforce employed in the public welfare sector. The results showed that women’s labor force participation was positively related to generous maternity leave policies and the availability of publicly funded childcare facilities. However, Mandel and Semyonov (Reference Mandel and Semyonov2006) found that country provision of these WF benefits was negatively related to the odds that women would advance to highly paid managerial positions.

Among the three components in their index, the length of maternity leaves had the strongest negative impact on women’s odds of attaining managerial positions, which the authors noted was consistent with their argument that public policies that allow long absences from work may unintentionally encourage employers to engage in statistical discrimination, referring to discrimination against women or mothers as a group, based on assumptions that they will be less productive or more costly employees (Mandel & Semyonov, Reference Mandel and Semyonov2006). Thus, the study suggests that an unintended consequence of some country-provided WF supports is that women who use them may experience negative career consequences, as measured by reduced chances of advancing to managerial positions, compared with women whose countries did not provide these types of supports.

In addition, Blau and Kahn (Reference Blau and Kahn2013) reached similar conclusions in their investigation of country rankings in 2010 showing that the labor force participation rate of women in the United States had fallen to seventeenth among the twenty-two countries included in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as compared to 1990 when the United States had the sixth-highest labor force participation rate of women among OECD countries. Blau and Kahn concluded that the change was due to many countries’ implementation of state-sponsored WF benefits, such as paid parental leaves, the job-protected right to change from working full-time to working part-time, provision of public childcare, and equal treatment of part-time workers, whereas the United States did not offer these types of WF policies. However, the authors’ analyses indicated that women in the United States were more likely to hold managerial or professional jobs than women in countries that offered more generous WF supports (Blau & Kahn, Reference Blau and Kahn2013). This may be attributable to the fact that more generous WF supports are also associated with larger proportions of women working part-time, and that part-time work is not typically available in high-level positions. Thus, women wanting to work part-time may have to settle for lower-level positions that offer more flexibility in work hours. Consistent with the Mandel and Semyonov’s (Reference Mandel and Semyonov2006) findings, the authors also suggested that in countries that offer these WF supports, employers may be more likely to engage in statistical discrimination against promoting women to higher-level positions due to concerns that women may take advantage of WF options, such as changing from full-time to part-time work or taking long parental leaves (Blau & Kahn, Reference Blau and Kahn2013). Thus, both studies suggest that in countries that provide WF benefits, women’s opportunities for career advancement may be more limited, and employers may stereotype women and engage in statistical discrimination against all women, including women who never used these WF policies in the past and do not intend to use them in the future.

There is also evidence from macro-level studies, such as the research discussed above, of “motherhood wage penalties,” referring to findings that women who are mothers tend to receive lower wages than women without children. In contrast, there is evidence that in the United States and many other countries, fathers receive a “fatherhood bonus” referring to higher wages for fathers in comparison to men who are not fathers (Misra & Murray-Close, Reference Misra and Murray-Close2014).

A more in-depth, longitudinal study of the motherhood wage penalty per child in Great Britain, Germany, and the United States found that these penalties differed in size, ranging from 10% (in the United States) to 18% (in Germany) (Gangl & Ziefle, Reference Gangl and Ziefle2009), and also the reasons for the penalties differed by country. In the United States and Great Britain, mothers’ wage penalties could be explained by mothers’ career gaps and moves to lower-paying, “mother-friendly” (i.e., flexible) jobs that tended to be held by women. In contrast, because the wage penalties associated with motherhood were larger in Germany than the other countries, and could not be fully explained by mothers’ career paths, the authors attributed the unexplained portion of the wage gaps to statistical discrimination against mothers by German employers (Gangl & Ziefle, Reference Gangl and Ziefle2009).

Notably, Gangl and Ziefle (Reference Gangl and Ziefle2009) found that motherhood wage penalties were smaller in the United States than either Great Britain or Germany. This was somewhat surprising because the authors explained that the labor market in the United States was considered to be the least “mother-friendly” of the three countries due to greater wage penalties for moving into female-dominated jobs or part-time work. However, women in the United States were less likely than women in the other countries to move into low-status or part-time jobs after childbirth, which was thought to offer an explanation for why women in the United States had smaller motherhood wage gaps than mothers in the other two countries (Gangl & Ziefle, Reference Gangl and Ziefle2009).

There have been a number of other studies showing relationships between motherhood and wage penalties. In fact, Boeckmann, Misra, and Budig (Reference Boeckmann, Misra and Budig2015) concluded that gender differences in compensation are actually due to wage penalties for mothers, as compensation for childless women is more similar to men’s compensation. Based on an eighteen-country study, they identified several reasons for the motherhood wage penalty, including use of WF policies, the length of maternity leaves, and country cultural attitudes about working mothers, all of which appeared to operate as determinants of mothers’ career patterns (Boeckmann, Misra, & Budig, Reference Boeckmann, Misra and Budig2015). The specific findings showed that in countries with generous WF supports, including very long, job-protected parental leaves, mothers are more likely to reduce their hours after childbirth than in countries without generous WF supports. On the other hand, in cultures where there is greater acceptance of mothers working full-time, there are smaller gender gaps in labor force participation rates and work hours than in countries with less cultural acceptance of mothers working full-time (Boeckmann et al., Reference Boeckmann, Misra and Budig2015).

Also, an eight-year longitudinal study in thirteen European countries found that in addition to the motherhood wage penalty, there was an occupational status penalty associated with motherhood (Abendroth, Huffman, & Treas, Reference Abendroth, Huffman and Treas2014). Births of a first and second child were each associated with a significant decrease in occupational status, and mothers typically did not recover their lost occupational status as their children grew older. However, in countries with public childcare, occupational status penalties for mothers were smaller, suggesting that when mothers have access to childcare, there is less need for them to switch to more flexible, but lower-status occupations after childbirth (Abendroth, Huffman, & Treas, Reference Abendroth, Huffman and Treas2014).

Thus, there is evidence that both structural characteristics, such as national WF policies allowing mothers to reduce their working hours, and cultural beliefs about whether mothers should be employed full-time were related to mothers’ careers (Abendroth et al., Reference Abendroth, Huffman and Treas2014). Also, several studies have shown that supportive WF policies are associated with (unintentional) career penalties, such as reduced compensation, for mothers who utilize the WF supports. Boeckmann et al.’s (Reference Boeckmann, Misra and Budig2015) study also suggests that the effects of WF policies on mothers’ compensation were mediated by differences between mothers’ careers, such as working fewer hours than other employees.

Thus, the studies that we reviewed suggest that country provision of generous WF supports and policies are often associated with reduced work hours for mothers as well as the related tendency for employers to statistically discriminate against women and limit their career advancement due to concerns that women will take advantage of these WF benefits. There have also been studies showing that WF policies are associated with increased occupational segregation of jobs by gender, with more lucrative jobs held by men rather than women, which offers an additional explanation for the pay gap between men and women (Hegewisch & Gornick, Reference Hegewisch and Gornick2011).

Hegewisch and Gornick (Reference Hegewisch and Gornick2011) explained that the literature about the unintended negative career consequences, such as the motherhood wage penalty associated with country WF provisions, raises important questions about causality. Research that focuses on what the authors term the “demand side” argument suggests that in countries where women have access to WF supports, such as long leaves and flexibility to work part-time, employers are more likely to engage in statistical discrimination that reduces women’s career advancement opportunities, especially for highly skilled women who might otherwise qualify for managerial or other highly paid jobs (Hegewisch & Gornick, Reference Hegewisch and Gornick2011). In contrast, the “supply side” argument suggests that the women who take advantage of these WF supports self-select into less competitive, lower-compensated jobs because either they prefer these types of jobs due to their compatibility with motherhood, or mothers may not qualify for better jobs, in part because extended leave-taking reduces their qualifications, such as human capital accumulation (Hegewisch & Gornick, Reference Hegewisch and Gornick2011). The authors also noted that both arguments are consistent with the empirical findings that WF policies are associated with more occupational segregation by gender as well as a larger gender earnings gap.

Conclusions and Future Research Ideas

Our review of this literature provides ample evidence that there are indeed many cross-national variations in employees’ WF and career outcomes. Moreover, comparative cross-national research is critical for investigating and understanding the effects of WF-related country-level contextual variables, including both cultural values and structural factors. For example, we found research showing that country cultural values reflecting gender egalitarianism and objective measures of gender equality were related to both organizational WF supports and employees’ WF/WL and career outcomes. There was also some evidence that country structural factors are related to organizational WF supports, but fewer structural studies examined relationships to individual outcomes.

Certainly, the most troubling findings that we reviewed are the unintended negative associations between well-intentioned country WF policies and mothers’ wage and occupational status penalties. These findings also raise pressing questions for countries that want to strengthen their WF policies about how to do so without negative consequences. In our opinion, both the demand-side and supply-side arguments are relevant.

According to these two perspectives, there is general agreement that motherhood penalties can occur, but disagreement as to why they occur. For example, the demand-side argument suggests that in countries with generous WF benefits, such as long paid leaves, employers may engage in statistical discrimination against hiring and promoting mothers to avoid costs or lower productivity associated with the state-mandated WF policies (e.g., Gangl & Ziefle, Reference Gangl and Ziefle2009). On the other hand, the supply-side argument attributes motherhood wage penalties to choices that women make, such as moves to lower-paying but more flexible jobs or part-time work.

The macro-level research has been valuable for identifying linkages between specific public policies and motherhood penalties. However, in order to further address these issues, it is critical to first gain a more complete understanding of why this is occurring. Results of macro-level studies are limited as they do not provide insights about either the organizational processes or perspectives of individual mothers. Thus, based on our review, it appears that more comprehensive and different research approaches are needed, and we offer three specific recommendations.

First, the best way to find out about mothers’ reasons for their career decisions is to ask them. In other words, rather than speculating about why mothers make career choices associated with motherhood wage gaps, we recommend that future research should incorporate direct measures of mothers’ own perspectives regarding the reasons for their career decisions. These could include their cultural norms, needs, WF supports, organizational barriers, perceived options, and personal views about their WF roles and careers (e.g., Peus & Traut-Mattausch, Reference Peus and Traut-Mattausch2008). Ideally, this research would be designed and carried out by interdisciplinary research teams with expertise about psychological career processes in addition to expertise about the extant research and policy issues involved.

Second, future research should investigate the critical mediating role that organizations play in relationships between country-level policies and individual-level employee career outcomes. Although this aspect of the cross-national literature is not well-developed, we found studies suggesting that countries’ WF policies are sometimes undermined by organizations either intentionally (e.g., statistical discrimination) or unintentionally (e.g., unsupportive supervisors, rigid WF gender role assumptions, or unequal access to WF supports by employee gender). Thus, future research is needed to gain a better understanding of the critical organizational role in supporting employees’ WF needs without career penalties.

Our third recommendation is that future research should take a more comprehensive approach. By organizing this review according to levels of analysis, it became clear that there are many gaps in the literature. We illustrated the value of research that incorporates country context, organizational WF supports, and individual outcomes by applying findings from Lyness and Kropf’s (Reference Lyness and Kropf2005) study to interpret results of other studies that did not include all three levels of analysis. However, this patchwork approach is far from ideal.

Thus, we recommend that future research should take a more comprehensive approach by including both cultural and structural aspects of country context, as well as organizational WF supports, and individual-level employee WF and career outcomes. Also, more representative samples of countries, organizations, occupations, and employees will enhance the generalizability of the findings. Based on our review, there appeared to be unique insights from both qualitative and quantitative research, again suggesting that multiple approaches and multiple stakeholder perspectives would be beneficial, as well as interdisciplinary expertise, which is essential.

In conclusion, we hope that our review of this rich literature will motivate further cross-national research about these issues. Moreover, our review suggests that there is considerable value to be gained, with unique opportunities for addressing pragmatic questions as well as developing more comprehensive theories.

Definitions and Semantics

Academic researchers often use Greenhaus and Beutell’s (Reference Greenhaus and Beutell1985) definition of work–family conflict, “a form of interrole conflict in which the role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect” (p.77). In this literature, there are three types of work–family conflict: time-based, strain-based and behavior-based. In recent years, other constructs such as work–family enrichment and work–family balance have emerged. The term “balance” suggests that there is an equal ratio between one’s work and one’s nonwork life. For this reason, the term “balance” is not well regarded in organizations because many leaders think equal ratios between work and home are not feasible while simultaneously meeting the organization’s goals.

Additionally, “work–family” suggests that an individual’s spouse and children are the only part of an employee’s life outside of work, or at least the only thing outside of work that comes with demands that may compete with work demands. For many employees, maintaining friendships, exercising, volunteering, attending school, or participating in hobbies are as important as their family demands (Sydell, Reference Sydell2014). Across a person’s lifespan, the demands and importance that an employee places on work, family, and other aspects of life are likely to change. For these reasons, we view the term “work–family” as limiting and instead focus on employees’ broader nonwork lives.

In an effort to get past the words and into action, some organizations use the term “work–life effectiveness” (e.g., Procter & Gamble) or simply “work–life” (e.g., Kellogg Company), but still measure time-based, strain-based, and behavior-based conflict to understand stressors on their employees. Following this lead, we use the general term “work–life effectiveness” throughout the chapter.

Measuring Work–Life Effectiveness in Organizations

Readers deeply ingrained in research at the intersection of work and nonwork life are familiar with popular peer-reviewed measures of work–life constructs, such as Netemeyer, Boles and McMurrian’s (Reference Netemeyer, Boles and McMurrian1996) and Carlson, Kacmar, and Williams’ (Reference Carlson, Kacmar and Williams2000) work–family conflict scales. In many organizations, including multinational firms, work–life effectiveness is measured both internally and externally. Internally, many companies conduct surveys of employees to understand their work–life situation, engagement, and intent to stay with the company among other topics. Survey items intended to understand the employee’s work–life situation may ask employees about time-based, behavior-based, and strain-based conflict, as well as use of work–life policies. Example survey questions are, “I have sufficient flexibility to balance my work and nonwork life” and “I have energy to do the things I enjoy after leaving work.” Human resources teams may also track the use of flexible work arrangements, such as telecommuting, compressed work weeks, and job shares, and other family-friendly policies, such as dependent care support. These data can then be analyzed in conjunction with other internal metrics (e.g., retention, performance) to elucidate connections.

Companies’ work–life effectiveness is also observed, measured, and shared externally. Websites such as Glassdoor and Indeed informally collect data from current and past employees of many large organizations, asking employees to report on their employers’ work–life programs as well as the employees’ own work–life experiences. These aggregated data are then made available to the public, and are commonly used by applicants to explore the various work–life experiences of their potential employers. As with any public forum, the comments for most companies represent employees who are both very pleased and very unhappy with the work–life environment at that company. For example, Kellogg has “work–life balance” listed in both the pros and cons sections of Glassdoor and comments range from “The company provides everything you need for your work–life balance” and “great work–life balance for you and your family” to “work–life balance [is] almost non-existent.”

More formal external evaluations of organizations’ work–life environments also shed light on which companies prioritize their employees’ well-being through programs and support of having a life outside of work. Fortune produces an annual list of 100 Best Companies to Work For and 50 Best Workplaces for Flexibility. Similarly, Working Mother magazine publishes a list of the 100 Best Companies. The lists are based on criteria including flexible work arrangements, availability and usage of paid family leave, programs for parents, health and wellness programs (for weight-loss, smoking cessation, nap rooms, etc.), and other benefits offerings. Metrics included in these evaluations are produced through cooperation between the magazines and companies and also include formal confidential employee surveys. Status on such well-respected lists is an important goal for many organizations, as described in the next section, as jobseekers and customers are likely to use this information in deciding to apply for employment or do business with a company.

Value of Work–Life Effectiveness to Organizations

We suggest that there are three main reasons why organizations care about work–life effectiveness: (1) attraction/retention of key talent, (2) increased performance/engagement, and (3) healthier/happier employees. First, work–life programs can have a positive impact on organizations through employee attraction. Younger generations expect to have a more equitable balance between time spent working and time dedicated to personal interests (Shellenbarger, Reference Shellenbarger1991; Thompson & Gregory, Reference Thompson and Gregory2012) and they consider a company’s work–life environment when job hunting. Not surprisingly, offering these policies to bolster work–life effectiveness is a technique to attract employees, expand the available talent pool, and enhance retention (Martin & MacDonnell, Reference Martin and MacDonnell2012; Spilker, Reference Spilker2014). In today’s world, prospective employees often search social media sites, like Glassdoor.com, to find the job that fits their life. Glassdoor, like several other social media sites, includes a rating for work–life balance. In addition, some well-regarded “top company” awards take into account what companies are doing to increase work–life effectiveness. For example, Working Mother magazine looks at how much fully paid maternity leave is offered and how many employees make use of flextime policies. In addition, the Sunday Times in the United Kingdom measures employee well-being for their “Best Companies” list, which takes into account how staff feel about the pressure and balance between work and home duties. It is relatively easy and common for job candidates to view these awards and research current and past employees’ impressions of work–life effectiveness at a given organization.

Many candidates consider what work–life programs are offered when deciding between employers (Thompson, Payne, & Taylor, Reference Thompson, Payne and Taylor2014). Therefore, organizations often publish what they are doing to increase work–life effectiveness on their career sites to attract diverse talent. Then, once talent joins an organization, it is important to measure work–life effectiveness and ensure they are happy with the support they are receiving from the organization so that they remain with the organization. Research shows that employees who are satisfied with their work–life effectiveness tend to have lower turnover (Beauregard & Henry, Reference Beauregard and Henry2009). The authors’ global research at Kellogg also shows that higher work–life effectiveness (lower time-based and strain-based work–family conflict) is related to increased retention. Given the cost of replacing professional talent is estimated to be at least 1.5 to 2.5 times annual salary (see the Saratoga Institute or http://irle.berkeley.edu/files/2010/Employee-Replacement-Costs.pdf), organizations are very interested in reducing voluntary turnover.

In addition to being connected to attraction and retention, research also shows a link between work–life effectiveness and employee performance and engagement. There is evidence to show that employees who are satisfied with their work–life effectiveness tend to be more productive (Konrad & Mangel, Reference Konrad and Mangel2000). From our own research at three large multinational organizations, we have seen that across many countries, higher work–life effectiveness is related to higher employee engagement (e.g., I would recommend Company X as a place to work; I am proud to work for Company X; I understand what I need to do to help Company X meet its goals and objectives).

However, some work–life arrangements that companies may offer do not always produce favorable results. Using remote work (also referred to as flexplace or telecommuting) as an example because it is one of the most popular work–life arrangements, many studies have found evidence that remote employees have higher job performance and are more productive than their counterparts working from a shared office location (e.g., Gajendran, Harrison, & Delaney-Klinger, Reference Gajendran, Harrison and Delaney-Klinger2014; Mekonnen, Reference Mekonnen2013). However, some studies did not find support for a relationship between remote work and job performance (Neufeld, Reference Neufeld1997; Ramsower, Reference Ramsower1983). The relationship between remote work and job performance also tends to vary depending on the measurement of remote work. For example, Gajendran and Harrison’s (Reference Gajendran and Harrison2007) meta-analysis found that remote work is related to employee performance as rated by supervisors and objective measures, but not with self-rated performance (Gajendran & Harrison, Reference Gajendran and Harrison2007). Therefore, although there is substantial support that those who report more work–life effectiveness also report more engagement, work–life policies do not necessarily equate to higher performance. This is probably because there is not a “one size fits all” solution that works across people, organizations, and cultures.

Finally, there is substantial research that shows when employees are able to successfully manage their work and nonwork life, they can avoid several stress-related consequences, which can relate to absenteeism and healthcare costs for organizations. For example, research shows that stress resulting from work–family conflict can have serious health consequences, including increased depression, anxiety, and substance abuse (Allen et al., Reference Allen, Herst, Bruck and Sutton2000; Greenhaus et al., Reference Greenhaus and Powell2006). In addition, employees with more work–family conflict are more likely to have heightened blood pressure, higher body mass index, more physical symptoms, and lower overall health (Allen et al., Reference Allen, Herst, Bruck and Sutton2000; Allen & Armstrong, Reference Allen and Armstrong2006; Greenhaus et al. Reference Greenhaus and Powell2006). Absenteeism has a negative effect on organizations in several ways, and multiple research studies have demonstrated that work–life initiatives like flexible work arrangements (Baltes et al., Reference Baltes, Briggs, Huff, Wright and Neuman1999; Pierce & Newstrom, Reference Pierce and Newstrom1983) and health initiatives (Woo, Yap, Oh, & Long, Reference Woo, Yap, Oh and Long1999) mitigate absenteeism.

Work–Life Challenges for Today’s Multinational Firms

Multinational organizations have additional unique concerns when it comes to managing work–life issues. Companies operating across multiple countries, continents, and time zones generally run their operations twenty-four hours a day, necessitating employees being available at nontraditional work hours to collaborate with coworkers or negotiate with customers around the globe. An employee in the United States, for example, may have a virtual meeting with Asian coworkers at 9:00 p.m. or European customers at 7:00 a.m. Flexible work arrangements including flexible hours or summer Fridays may enable employees to better manage their work and life demands, but could impact business results for multinational companies.

Additionally, the numerous national cultures present in a multinational organization may impact the concept of work–life effectiveness. Cultural norms shape how employees experience the work and family roles as well as their expectations and needs when it comes to managing these domains (Ollier-Malaterre, Reference Ollier-Malaterre, Allen and Eby2016). More specifically, aspects of culture such as collectivism/individualism and gender egalitarianism may impact the meaning of work and family, expectations of the organization, as well as the relationship between the two domains (Powell, Francesco, & Ling, Reference Powell, Francesco and Ling2009). For example, research has found that work demands are more strongly related to work–family conflict for individualistic countries (e.g., Australia, the Netherlands, the United States) than for collectivist countries (e.g., China, Korea, Japan; Lu, Gilmour, Kao, & Huang, Reference Lu, Gilmour, Kao and Huang2006; Spector et al., Reference Spector, Allen and Poelmans2007). That is, when work demands increase, such as workload or deadlines, employees from individualist countries are more likely to experience more work–family conflict than those from collectivist countries. Therefore, a one size fits all approach to work–life effectiveness may not be appropriate or sustainable within multinational organizations. As an example, time management skills training to deal with workload may have an impact on employees from individualist cultures, but not impact work–life outcomes for employees from collectivist cultures. Instead, work–life solutions need to be tailored to match the experiences, expectations, and needs of employees within different regions and cultures.

Employment law also impacts how multinational organizations are able to manage work and life. For example, several European countries (e.g., Denmark, Ireland) require that employees do not exceed thirty-seven work hours in a week. A new labor law in France provides employees with the right to disconnect from email, phones, and other work-related technology outside of working hours. On the other hand, works councils in some countries may limit the availability of flexible work arrangements to employees in particular countries (e.g., Germany, France). While work–life programs need to be tailored across countries, it is also important to maintain the appearance of fairness in program availability within a single employing multinational organization. Employees in any country can generally access policies and support information for their colleagues across the world. Even if the employee does not have access, collaboration with partners across the company will ensure that the knowledge is shared outside of a particular country. It is important that multinational firms do not have grossly different offerings, especially when employees develop their careers across country boundaries.

Work–Life Initiatives: Triumphs and Setbacks

Given the importance of work–life effectiveness to employees working at multinational organizations, many global companies have tried to address work–life through various programs, initiatives, and policies. One in particular, global financial services firm, J.P. Morgan’s “Pencils Down” Initiative, recognizes the stressful work culture that exists in many organizations. It joins a number of other financial firms that have decided to enact programs to lessen the workload in order to keep new recruits on board (Kasperkevic, Reference Kasperkevic2016). Previously, their investment bankers were only permitted one weekend off per month, and one-hundred-hour work weeks were not uncommon. J.P. Morgan’s new initiative encourages taking weekends off, and involves tracking bankers’ hours weekly. When a certain threshold is passed, a manager contacts the banker to discuss the necessity for excessive hours, and what may be done to fix the problem (Glazer & Huang, Reference Glazer and Huang2016). However, even with this initiative in place, some still decide to continue working very high-hour work weeks in order to handle the workload.

In 2015, Netflix implemented an impressive parental leave plan for its salaried workers – unlimited parental leave for up to a year following a child’s birth or adoption. The company modified this plan in 2016, increasing the number of eligible employees. Now, both mothers and fathers get paid leave, but the amount varies by company division. For instance, those working in its customer service division are allowed fourteen weeks of paid leave (Alba, Reference Alba2015). It is now much more common for technology companies to offer generous paid parental leave, even though some countries in which the firms operate do not require companies to provide these benefits (Adamczyk, Reference Adamczyk2015).

Additionally, as companies attempt to increase the diversity of their workforces by hiring more women and keeping them in the workforce longer, some companies are offering to pay to help extend fertility. For example, Facebook and Apple were among the first known companies to pay for egg-freezing for female employees. This is an option for women who choose to delay childbearing. The Facebook benefit plan covers up to $20,000 worth of procedures, typically two rounds of egg retrieval. The procedure is still only in its early phases of success, as it was only two years ago that the American Society of Reproductive Medicine lifted the experimental label from egg-freezing (Sydell, Reference Sydell2014).

Despite the many successful work–life initiatives, many organizations continue to struggle with striking the perfect balance – being a high-performing organization while keeping employees engaged and satisfied with their work–life effectiveness. Often there is not a one-size-fits-all answer that will increase performance, keep a company competitive, and keep employees satisfied with their work–life effectiveness across cultures. Additionally, if the existing organizational culture of a firm or national culture doesn’t align with efforts toward managing work–life effectiveness, even best-in-class initiatives may not yield positive results. Many organizations that have made great efforts in the work–life arena have ended up rescinding their programs. For example, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer eliminated her company’s work from home program in June 2013 in order to strengthen the collaboration and culture of the company (Goudreau, Reference Goudreau2013; Lavey-Heaton, Reference Lavey-Heaton2014). Best Buy also ended their results-only work environment (ROWE) policy (Lee, Reference Lee2013) and Hewlett-Packard has reduced the number of employees allowed to work away from the office (Hesseldahl, Reference Hesseldahl2013; Lavey-Heaton, Reference Lavey-Heaton2014). Most recently, Charter Communications acquired Time Warner Cable and quickly reduced work–life options like working from home and early departure on summer Fridays (Pressman, Reference Pressman2016). Despite the recent examples of organizations taking steps backward in the journey to ensure all employees have the flexibility to live a balanced life, companies continue to search for the right policies and perspective to encourage work–life effectiveness.

We now turn to a case study describing how one large multinational organization, the Kellog Company, approaches and addresses work–life effectiveness in their diverse global workforce.

Kellogg’s Global Opinion Survey

Like many large multinational companies, Kellogg conducts a regular employee opinion survey administered to all of its employees worldwide. The full survey, which takes approximately twenty minutes to complete, has fifty multiple-choice and two open-ended questions, all measuring critical areas important to performance, retention, and engagement at Kellogg. One such area is work–life effectiveness, composed of four items assessing workload (e.g., “The amount of work I’m expected to do is reasonable”), flexibility (e.g., “I have sufficient flexibility to effectively balance my work and personal life”), use of flexible work arrangements (e.g., “Which of the following flexible work arrangements do you use?”), and energy (e.g., “When I leave work, I have energy for things I enjoy”). Typically, over 75% of employees (20,000+) respond to the survey with strong representation from each region in the world. At the close of the survey cycle, top executives at Kellogg review the survey results and decide on the top two-to-three priorities for the company and for each region. In 2011, the CEO and his team decided that one of the top global priorities would be work–life effectiveness. Compared to benchmark results provided by Kellogg’s survey provider of all other companies they work with, the 2011 scores on work–life effectiveness showed that Kellogg had significant room for improvement in this area.

To address the opportunity, a team was formed to begin to understand the results in more detail and recommend a plan to address work–life effectiveness at Kellogg. To start, the team conducted focus groups representing each of the four primary regions, different business areas (e.g., cereal, snacks, and frozen foods), and job level in the organization. The team also leveraged Kellogg’s existing employee resource groups (ERGs), such as the “Women of Kellogg” and “Young Professionals,” in order to understand what work–life effectiveness meant to employees and what they thought the company should do to address work–life effectiveness. The findings from the focus groups showed that work–life meant different things depending on an individual’s personal and work situation. For example, one parent defined work–life effectiveness as being able to attend her children’s sports or school events and spend valuable time with her children in the evenings and on weekends. Another employee, without children, defined work–life effectiveness as being able to play dodgeball after work and travel on the weekends. In order to focus on improvement rather than get stuck in the definition, Kellogg began using the term “work–life” instead of “work–life balance” or “work–life conflict.” Several unique themes surrounding work–life effectiveness emerged from the focus groups: manager effectiveness, wellness, and the impact of technology on workload.

Manager effectiveness. Employees in the focus groups often referenced their manager when describing whether or not they felt they had the necessary flexibility to balance their work and nonwork lives. Findings showed that some managers were familiar with and used the company’s existing policies around flexible hours and remote work, whereas others were not familiar with the policies. In addition, employees reported some managers were very supportive of their work and nonwork lives, while other employees reported that they didn’t have choices when it came to managing their work–life effectiveness. For example, in the United States, a few employees reported that they lived in Chicago and commuted to Kellogg’s headquarters in Battle Creek, MI (2.5+ hours) only when needed so they could live fulfilling lives outside of work. Other employees reported that their managers required them to be at their desks for forty hours per week regardless of nonwork demands.

Focus group and qualitative analysis from open-ended responses on the annual survey also suggested that managers modeled flexibility very differently. Employees described that some managers took advantage of company policies on flexible work arrangements, such as leaving at noon on Fridays during the summer, whereas others spent long hours at a desk every day. Focus group respondents explained that when their managers modeled flexibility, they felt more comfortable using flexible work arrangements themselves.

Employees also mentioned that they did not mind putting in extra hours in the evenings or on weekends when it was needed; however, they became frustrated when managers were not clear on objectives and/or priorities, resulting in wasted time and effort off-hours. Some employees reported being unclear about the importance of a project, where to focus their effort, and, often, what work could be taken off the priority list. Because of this, employees often worked extra hours on projects that ended up being deprioritized and not needed. Interestingly, this finding was mainly in Anglo countries (i.e., Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States) – employees did not mention this as an issue in Asia or Latin America.

Wellness. In 2011 and 2012, one of the lowest-scoring items on the Global Opinion Survey was “When I leave work, I have energy for things I enjoy.” Although respondents focused more on managers and workload in their open-ended responses on the annual survey, focus group respondents reported that they were uncertain how to increase their energy at work and at home. In some regions of the world, there were already health and wellness programs, such as “Feeling Great” in the United States to help employees stay fit and healthy (e.g., Fitbit step competitions, biometric testing, nutrition counseling); however, we found that not all locations offered something similar. Many employees did not understand the connection between health/nutrition/activity and energy levels.

Technology. Technology can be both an enabler and hindrance for work–life flexibility. Having a smartphone, and other mobile tools, connects employees to their work day and night. Research examining the association between technology use and employee stress has shown that frequent technology use, such as smartphones, is related to work-related strain (Brown, Duck, & Jimmieson, Reference Brown, Duck and Jimmieson2014). Increased connectivity has been associated with higher levels of strain, stress, and burnout, even after controlling for demographics, job variables, and job demands (Day, Paquet, Scott, & Hambley, Reference Day, Paquet, Scott and Hambley2012).

At Kellogg, employees discussed the ability of their managers to reach them at any time and the pressure they felt to respond immediately when their managers or other upper management asked a question. The perceptions of the need for immediate responsiveness were mostly employee-created due to a lack of clarification on communication expectations. Although many managers said they did not intend for employees to respond after 6 p.m. or on weekends, employees still felt obligated to do so. Many respondents to the Global Opinion Survey and focus groups requested clear boundaries to be established through technology cut-offs. For example, several requested no emails after 5 p.m. or on weekends. Although common, this request was not seen as practical by many executives given the global scale of the company. When the business is run in several time zones, it is considered important to respond during off-hours so that work can continue in another time zone. For example, work hours in Singapore and Eastern Standard Time in the United States do not overlap. Therefore, if a colleague in the United States has a question for a colleague in Singapore at the beginning of their work day, they will not be able to get the answer until the next work day unless one or both work off-hours.

The Work–Life Program

Based on the findings from the Global Opinion Survey and follow-up focus groups, Kellogg leaders executed a multiyear initiative to improve employees’ work–life effectiveness through three main levers: (1) manager, (2) health and wellness, and (3) technology.

Manager. In the first year, the focus was on opening up communication between managers and their direct reports. In a relatively simple initiative, each manager around the globe was asked to have a fifteen-minute conversation with their direct reports during their mid-year performance review. Each manager was given a discussion guide where they were instructed to ask, “What is the one thing we can do together in the next year to improve your work–life?” This approach allowed for cultural and individual differences because the conversation was personalized. For example, the solutions discussed in China could be very different than the solutions discussed in Mexico. Although we did not collect feedback on what was discussed, we were told this solution worked in each country.

In order to support each manager and employee to have a thoughtful and effective conversation, Kellogg’s work–life team created a work–life portal on the company’s intranet that contains (1) links to global and local policies, (2) a resource center for employees, managers, and HR professionals, (3) success stories of employees who have found ways to reduce work and life stress, (4) a work–life personal inventory so employees can gain self-awareness of their current situation, and (5) links to global and local trainings for easy access and best practice sharing across regions. The initiative was rolled out by the chief HR officer and the chief technology officer, who partnered to explain the importance of the “One Thing” conversation and roll out the supporting work–life online portal. Each member of the global leadership team (top executives in the company) were asked to fully support the program and role-model the behaviors.

The portal gained much internal attention and the work–life success stories were especially big hits. A success story that stands out involves an employee in the finance division who explained to her manager that she was struggling to balance her home demands with the late evenings at work during times in the year when budgeting takes place. When her manager probed, she found out that the employee had to often rely on friends and family members to pick up her child from daycare because she couldn’t get there before they closed. Often, she did not return home until after her child went to bed, creating tension in her marriage. The manager went to the work–life portal to look at policies and tools that may help. After reviewing stories from other employees and current policies, the manager and employee decided to make a commitment that the employee would leave work every day by 5:30 p.m. If additional work was needed after hours, the employee would do it from home after her child went to bed. They also agreed that if a late night was needed, the employee could take some additional time for her family on Friday afternoons.

The “manager” phase of improving work–life effectiveness at Kellogg had a positive impact. The “One Thing” discussion helped to drive policy awareness for both managers and employees and helped open the dialogue so that perceived barriers could be removed. Two months after launch, over 60% of managers reported that they had the conversation with their employees and there were thousands of downloads and engagements with the tools on the work–life portal.

Health and wellness. While the North America region of Kellogg already had a robust health and wellness program, this was not the case in other regions. With the push to improve work–life for Kellogg employees around the globe, best practices were shared and innovative programs were started around the world. For example, in Europe, they started a “Fit for Life” week, which was a week each year dedicated to health and wellness. Some locations began competitions (such as “Walk from Dublin to Geneva”) during the Fit for Life week that lasted several months with check-ins and prizes throughout the competition. Each location in Europe could customize their Fit for Life week to meet the needs of the local environment, but many included yoga and/or meditation courses, nutrition education, walk and stretch breaks, and fitness competitions. In the Walk from Dublin to Geneva competition, employees at the Cereal headquarters location in Dublin were invited to track their steps to figuratively “walk” across Europe, stopping at each Kellogg location along the way, to the Snacks headquarters in Geneva. There were prizes for reaching each location, and recognition for the team that made it to Geneva first.

Although weight management is a major topic and concern in the United States, other countries decided to focus more on their local concerns. Most European countries emphasized energy and overall wellness, and others (e.g., Asia) focused on air quality and reducing pollution. The flexibility of the program allowed for different countries to discuss and act on what was most important to them. Health and wellness tips were also shared on the work–life portal, along with personal stories of staying fit and healthy and maintaining energy throughout the day. During this portion of the work–life initiative, the work–life portal continued to feature articles about employees who improved their work–life effectiveness by focusing on their health, tips on how to maintain energy throughout the day, and exercises employees could do at their desks.

Technology. Kellogg started a multiyear journey to improve its technologies not long after the first Global Opinion Survey in 2011. Part of this effort made working remotely much easier, by investing in Skype for Business which allows employees to speak and/or video conference with others through their computers or smartphones. Kellogg’s IT team also started an initiative called “Work Anywhere.” Through this, the IT team worked to enhance technology so that employees could get their work done whenever and wherever they wanted. In the past, Kellogg had a strong facetime culture where employees were expected to be in the office environment five days a week and be seen by leaders. The Work Anywhere initiative encouraged managers and employees to think differently about where work could get done. Part of this initiative included a questionnaire to help employees figure out the right technology solutions (e.g., type of computer, applications) depending on their personal situation. The work–life team also invested in training to help employees with email effectiveness, managing Outlook and the “delay send” button so employees can work at any hour without interrupting their team.

The largest step taken in 2016 was the decision that not all Kellogg employees should need to be accessible and available 24/7. Now, employees are not required to carry a mobile device unless their job necessitates extensive travel or international connection. With the new policy, most employees are no longer required to be accessible after regular business hours and management cannot expect responses outside the normal work day. It is too early to tell the impact of this recent change; however, some have already mentioned the improvement in their work–life effectiveness on Kellogg’s intranet.

Results

As mentioned earlier, Kellogg began their multiyear journey to improve work–life effectiveness in 2011 and has been measuring progress ever since. Although employees did not report significantly better work–life effectiveness in 2012 or 2013, there has been significant improvement in the most recent 2015 survey results (please note that the survey went from annual to biennial in 2013, so no survey was administered in 2014). Although there is still room for improvement, in 2015, more employees around the world reported that they have more flexibility to use alternative work arrangements, and sufficient flexibility to effectively balance their work and home lives. While each region adjusted the corporate work–life strategy to fit local needs, each region has seen improvement. For example, in North America, where they heavily focused on manager-employee relationships, percent favorable scores increased by seven points overall on the work–life effectiveness dimension and ten points on flexibility to balance work and home life. Other regions saw improvement in the survey (energy or workload) based on where leaders focused their work–life initiatives. Kellogg will continue to work to improve employees’ lives through building better manager-employee relationships, improving health and wellness, and focusing on the role of technology in their ongoing work–life programs. The company’s leaders believe that people are the company’s strongest competitive advantage and they are devoted to enriching and delighting not only their consumers, but also their employees.

What Is Workplace Flexibility?

The literature surrounding workplace flexibility is quite expansive. Consequently, there are numerous definitions, ranging in scope from individual or task levels to broader, more organizational or procedural level perspectives (Kossek & Thompson, Reference Kossek, Thompson, Allen and Eby2016). Some researchers have focused on the extent to which employees have control over some aspect of their work arrangement, such as when work is conducted or career breaks (Allen, Johnson, Kiburz, & Shockley, Reference Allen, Johnson, Kiburz and Shockley2013; Berg, Kossek, Misra, & Belman, Reference Berg, Kossek, Misra and Belman2014; Hill, Grzywacz, Allen, Blanchard, Matz-Costa, Shulkin, & Pitt-Catsouphes, Reference Hill, Grzywacz, Allen, Blanchard, Matz-Costa, Shulkin and Pitt-Catsouphes2008). Alternatively, other scholars have examined how organizations implement policies at a process level, utilizing flexibility to maintain standing in a competitive market (Kossek & Thompson, Reference Kossek, Thompson, Allen and Eby2016). Accordingly, workplace flexibility has been defined relative to the research questions and outcomes of interest for researchers.

Consistent with other definitions, the current chapter defines workplace flexibility as a mutually agreed upon arrangement between an employee and employer whereby both parties approve of when, where, or how the employee will conduct his/her work (Kossek et al., Reference Kossek, Hammer, Thompson and Burke2014). An important component within this definition is the ability of employees to control some aspect of their work, thereby increasing the likelihood of policies leading to positive outcomes for employees (Kossek et al., Reference Kossek, Lautsch and Eaton2006; Kossek & Thompson, Reference Kossek, Thompson, Allen and Eby2016). Similarly, the definition incorporates an agreement between both stakeholders. In other words, we acknowledge that some arrangements have led to implementation gaps, or disparities between the stated goals and objectives of flexibility policies (in theory or practice) and the experiences of those involved in the arrangement (Kossek & Thompson, Reference Kossek, Thompson, Allen and Eby2016). Flexible policies and practices must meet organizational needs and goals (e.g., maintaining productivity and scheduling demands). Therefore, considering multiple perspectives when conceptualizing workplace flexibility allows for operationalizations that most benefit each of the various stakeholder groups.

It is important to begin the discussion of types of workplace flexibility by acknowledging that the United States is not the only country with workplace flexibility practices nor is it the most progressive. However, the preponderance of the top-tier research literature, at least in the areas of industrial-organizational psychology and organizational behavior, examines samples from the United States (Myers, Reference Myers2016). Additionally, many researchers have pointed out that the majority of studies examining work–life issues conducted outside of the United States have been in Western European and Anglo countries (Chandra, Reference Chandra2012; Spector, Cooper, Poelmans, Allen, O’Driscoll, Sanchez, et al., Reference Spector, Cooper, Poelmans, Allen, O’Driscoll, Sanchez and Lu2004). However, researchers have identified cultural differences in the availability, use, and outcomes associated with flex policies and practices across the world (Raghuram et al., Reference Raghuram, London and Larsen2001; Stavrou & Kilaniotis, Reference Stavrou and Kilaniotis2010), a discussion of which follows in a subsequent section of this chapter.

Types of Workplace Flexibility

Before diving into cultural differences regarding flexibility, it is important to first discuss the four primary conceptualizations of workplace flexibility: (1) flexibility in time or when work is conducted; (2) flexibility in place or where work is conducted; (3) flexibility in the amount of work or workload; and (4) flexibility in leave periods and career continuity (Kossek & Thompson, Reference Kossek, Thompson, Allen and Eby2016).

Flexibility in time. Flexibility in time of work affords employees discretion over how their total work hours are distributed (Kossek et al., Reference Kossek, Hammer, Thompson and Burke2014; Thompson et al., Reference Thompson, Payne and Taylor2015). Several formal work policies and informal practices offer flexibility in time, including flextime, compressed workweeks, flexible shifts, and part-year or seasonal work. These arrangements vary in both the degree to which they offer employee control as well as the span of time over which the flexibility occurs. For instance, flextime arrangements typically require a daily core time around which all employees are expected to work, but allow employees to choose the start/stop times of their individual workday as they see fit (Baltes, Briggs, & Huffcutt, Reference Baltes, Briggs, Huff, Wright and Neuman1999). Compressed workweeks allow employees to condense a typical workweek into fewer than five days each week or fewer than ten days in two weeks, thus affording them an additional day off compared to a standard work schedule (Kossek & Michel, Reference Kossek, Michel and Zedeck2011; Kossek et al., Reference Kossek, Hammer, Thompson and Burke2014). On the other hand, arrangements such as part-year and seasonal work offer employees the option to work during specific times of year, rather than having choice over parts of the day (Kossek & Thompson, Reference Kossek, Thompson, Allen and Eby2016). Flexible shiftwork refers to arrangements that differ from traditional work schedules, often by extending organizational hours using work teams. There are many types of shiftwork arrangements, which vary along several dimensions including the length of shifts, continuity of coverage, inclusion of night work, and the nature of shift rotations (Smith, Folkard, Tucker, & Macdonald, Reference Smith, Folkard, Tucker and Macdonald1998).

Time-based flexibility is thought to be desirable to employees because the increased control over work scheduling provides employees with a greater ability to manage their work demands around nonwork demands, therefore increasing resources to meet demands in both roles (Hobfoll, Reference Hobfoll2001; Voyandoff, Reference Voyandoff2005). In other words, by allowing some degree of discretion over when employees work, organizations enable employees to expand the times they are available for nonwork demands while still meeting their work demands (Thompson et al., Reference Thompson, Payne and Taylor2015). Research has found that compared to flexibility in place, or where work is done, flexibility in the timing of work has stronger relationships with beneficial employee and employer outcomes (Allen et al., Reference Allen, Johnson, Kiburz and Shockley2013; Thompson et al., Reference Thompson, Payne and Taylor2015). In addition, employers benefit from time-based flexibility through the increased availability to clients (i.e., expanded business hours; Kossek, Thompson, & Lautsch, Reference Kossek, Thompson and Lautsch2015).

Flexibility in place. Flexibility in place or the location of work, also known as flexplace, allows employees some degree of choice over where their work is conducted, relative to the central worksite (Kossek et al., Reference Kossek, Hammer, Thompson and Burke2014). The most frequently studied organizational practice of flexibility in place is telework or telecommuting (Gajendran & Harrison, Reference Gajendran and Harrison2007). Telework and other flexplace arrangements, such as remote work and hoteling, vary in the frequency with which employees work away from the central worksite.

While many employees choose to work from home, employees may also work from other locations such as a remote work center or satellite offices. Hoteling refers to when employers allocate temporary or as-needed office space for employees who typically work offsite (Kossek & Thompson, Reference Kossek, Thompson, Allen and Eby2016). However, it is important to note that although many employees have the ability to choose to work somewhere other than the central worksite, not all flexplace arrangements are discretionary. In other words, organizations often utilize flexplace policies in order to maximize productivity and/or client outcomes. Gajendran and Harrison (Reference Gajendran and Harrison2007) argue that control is an essential part of workplace flexibility, including telework, as it enhances employee perceptions of autonomy by presenting employees some degree of choice over the work demands. Thompson et al. (Reference Thompson, Payne and Taylor2015) argue that policies and practices that require employees to work offsite or travel to meet clients and are not under the control of the employee are not, in fact, flexible. For example, employers may require employees to work remotely at a client site or at home (in addition to work done at the office) to complete an ongoing project. Therefore, these uses of flexplace arrangements do not offer employees control over where they conduct their work, but rather are designed solely to enhance organizational goals.

Policies and practices involving flexibility in location are considered beneficial to employees as they allow employees to avoid going to the central work site with some predictability. This reduces work and nonwork boundary-spanning obstacles (e.g., commute time, task-appropriate clothing) and therefore enables employees to transition between work and nonwork roles more quickly and easily (Thompson et al., Reference Thompson, Payne and Taylor2015). In addition, by having some amount of predictability over when they will have discretion over their work location, these practices may facilitate employees’ ability to take advantage of nonwork opportunities that traditional work arrangements would not permit. For example, employees may prefer to live in locations that are far away from the central worksite while working remotely or apply unused commute time to attend a child’s sports event (Kossek et al., Reference Kossek, Thompson and Lautsch2015).

An additional consideration of flexplace arrangements is that many policies and practices that allow flexibility in location may also offer flexibility in time (e.g., telework); however, these types of flexibility are not necessarily concomitant. Some researchers even suggest that simply offering flexibility in location without also offering flexibility in time provides employees little more flexibility than working from the central worksite (Shockley & Allen, Reference Shockley and Allen2007).

Flexibility in the amount of work or workload. Flexibility in amount of work reflects arrangements that alter an employee’s workload relative to a traditional assignment in order for the employee to maintain employment while managing nonwork demands. This facilitates employees’ abilities to avoid recurring work and nonwork conflicts by changing the workload in a manner that meets the needs of both the employee and organization (Kossek et al., Reference Kossek, Hammer, Thompson and Burke2014). One type of arrangement is reduced-load work, which refers to working diminished duties relative to a full-time workload including a proportionate decrease in pay (Kossek, & Lee, Reference Kossek and Lee2008; Lee, MacDermid, & Buck, Reference Lee, MacDermid and Buck2000). This reflects both the amount of time as well as the number of tasks an employee is expected to complete (Kossek & Lee, Reference Kossek and Lee2008). Another type of arrangement is job sharing, which is when two employees working on a part-time basis split the duties of a full-time job (Kossek et al., Reference Kossek, Hammer, Thompson and Burke2014).

Employees are likely to seek these arrangements when they have ongoing life demands (e.g., school, community, family) that prevent them from taking on or continuing to work a full workload. By working at a reduced or part-time load, employees are able to maintain benefits associated with employment while attending to their outside obligations. In other words, flexibility in workload allows employees to restructure their work around nonwork in a manner that maximizes resources to meet demands in both domains (Hobfoll, Reference Hobfoll2001). Employers benefit from these arrangements through the ability to hire and/or retain talented employees who may not be able to work on a traditional full workload. Correspondingly, not only can employers hire employees to work a reduced-load arrangement, but they may also allow current full-time employees to transition to a reduced load, thus enabling the employees to maintain employment and the organization to retain valuable organizational members (as well as reduce overall hiring and selection expenses).

Flexibility in leave periods and career continuity. Policies and practices focused on flexibility in continuity provide employees the opportunity to alter their work arrangement and even, at times, the trajectory of their career, in order to attend to temporary challenges or demands outside of work. These can include policies such as sabbaticals, implementation of leave policies, and career flexibility (Kossek et al., Reference Kossek, Hammer, Thompson and Burke2014). Sabbaticals refer to extended periods of absence taken by employees from employment for reasons varying from family demands, education, to military duties (Kossek et al., Reference Kossek, Hammer, Thompson and Burke2014). In the United States, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) entitles many employees to take unpaid, job-protected leave due to family or medical reasons while continuing health insurance coverage (US Department of Labor, 1993).

The benefit of continuity flexibility is that it allows employees to maintain long-term employment or even their career despite temporary or relatively short-term life demands (e.g., illness, death in the family, fluctuating dependent care demands) that have caused them to take advantage of continuity or break policies. In other words, employees who might otherwise have to quit their jobs or find alternative ways to support these important nonwork demands are able to meet their obligations with the assurance that they will be able to return to their workplace once they are able to do so, thus reducing the likelihood of burnout and conflict associated with having to manage multiple roles (Kossek et al., Reference Kossek, Hammer, Thompson and Burke2014). These policies may be particularly impactful for employees who experience multiple or ongoing life demands. For example, women often face career penalties when they take multiple breaks from work due to pregnancy/childbirth. In a study of US mid-level information technology careers, Simard and colleagues identified that nearly one-third of women reported delaying their career goals in order to have children as well as that women were more likely than their male counterparts to sacrifice traditional family (e.g., marriage/partnership, having children) to achieve career goals (Simard, Henderson, Gilmartan, Schiebinger, & Whitney, Reference Simard, Henderson, Gilmartin, Schiebinger, Whitney and Clayman2008). Thus, flexibility in continuity may provide employees the opportunity to continue their career paths without forgoing or compromising on nonwork roles.

These policies also allow employers to retain employees who might otherwise be forced to leave their positions due to unexpected life events or relatively predictable periods of demand fluctuation due to life changes. This enables employers to preserve the institutional knowledge, relationships between employees and clients, as well as investment in talent.

Formal policies and informal practices. Another important distinction in the workplace flexibility literature is between formal policies, or those officially sanctioned through an organization’s human resources area, and informal practices implemented on an ad hoc basis at the discretion of supervisors (Eaton, Reference Eaton2003; Kossek et al., Reference Kossek, Hammer, Thompson and Burke2014). As such, informal flexibility can be permitted by supervisors on a case-by-case basis and therefore may not be available to all employees. Consequently, not all employees may have equal access to use flexibility and therefore are not eligible for the associated advantages (Eaton, Reference Eaton2003). Additionally, the ability to choose when and who has access to flexibility makes supervisors de facto gatekeepers to these policies. Supervisors may not allow employees to use flexible policies for all types of nonwork commitments (e.g., family obligations, home or car repair, continuing education). This can foster perceptions of unfairness and potential conflict surrounding who is or is not most deserving of the ability to use flexible policies (Kossek et al., Reference Kossek, Su and Wu2016).

However, simply offering policies is not sufficient to facilitate employees’ control over their work arrangement. Researchers have found evidence that informal mechanisms of work–family support explain greater variance in employee outcomes than do formal mechanisms alone, suggesting that family-supportive workplace cultures are important components of the effectiveness of work–family initiatives (Behson, Reference Behson2005; Kossek, Pichler, Bodner, & Hammer, Reference Kossek, Pichler, Bodner and Hammer2011; Thompson, Beauvais, & Lyness, Reference Thompson, Beauvais and Lyness1999).

Global Trends in Policies and Practices

The desire to balance work and nonwork demands is practically universal. However, individual responses to conflicting work and nonwork demands vary across countries and cultures (Chandra, Reference Chandra2012). Given the vast differences in the types of workplace flexibility, it is not surprising that there are wide-ranging global differences in the availability and use of the various policies and practices. In addition to individual-level factors, multinational organizations have faced a variety of challenges impacting the implementation of workplace flexibility on an international scale. The globalization of business interests, increasing technological advances, and societal changes in family dynamics across the world have all influenced how individuals experience the relationship between work and family, thus affecting the perceptions and utilization of workplace flexibility for today’s employees (Chandra, Reference Chandra2012). Similarly, as corporations continue to expand and compete on international levels, implementing work–family policies such as workplace flexibility in their workforces across the world has become a nuanced challenge.

As researchers have pointed out, the terms surrounding “flexibility” and related policies and practices often refer to a variety of different behaviors and/or theories (Brewster, Mayne, & Tregaskis, Reference Brewster, Mayne and Tregaskis1997). Additionally, the availability and use of workplace flexibility varies across cultures as well as expectations regarding appropriate methods for resolving work–life conflict. Similarly, the meaning of specific flexibility policies and practices differs across countries and geographic regions, as a function of societal norms, laws, and cultural values. Consequently, multinational organizations can face a wide variety of challenges when implementing flexibility practices on a global scale. Therefore, it is critical to have an understanding of these issues when developing policies and practices that transcend geographic regions. Below, we discuss patterns researchers have identified regarding trends in workplace flexibility within and across major geographic regions as well as examples of cultural, legal, and socioeconomic factors that play a role in the these trends.

The United States. In a study of organizations in the United States, the 2014 National Study of Employers reported that 81% of employers allow at least some employees to periodically use flextime (Matos & Galinsky, Reference Matos and Galinsky2014). Similarly, 67% of employers reported allowing employees to work some paid hours from home on an occasional basis. Thirty-six percent of employers reported allowing at least some employees to move from full-time to part-time load while remaining in the same position and 29% allowed at least some employees to share jobs (Matos & Galinsky, Reference Matos and Galinsky2014). The report points out that employers of fifty or more employees most frequently allowed employees to have some control over when they take breaks (92%) and take time off for important family/personal needs without loss of pay (82%). The authors also note that employers were most likely to allow at least some groups of employees (74%) to return to work gradually after leave due to childbirth or adoption (Matos & Galinsky, Reference Matos and Galinsky2014). In contrast, job sharing was one of the least frequently implemented workplace flexibility options in the United States, with only 29% of employers offering at least some employees the ability to job share (Matos & Galinsky, Reference Matos and Galinsky2014).

Supporting ongoing efforts to implement workplace flexibility in the federal government, in 2010 the United States Congress signed the Telework Enhancement Act promoting the use of telework in government agencies (US Office of Personnel Management, 2011). In line with these trends, during the course of the 2012 fiscal year the United States Office of Personnel Management reported that 14% of Federal employees teleworked, a 2% increase from the previous year (US Office of Personnel Management, 2011).

Workplace flexibility has been and continues to be an issue of national interest in the United States. Employees of varying demographic backgrounds in the United States value and are interested in workplace flexibility (Matos & Galinsky, 2012), suggesting there is no specific person that is seeking or is the target of flexibility policies and practices. Kossek and colleagues (Reference Kossek, Hammer, Thompson and Burke2014) stated that flexibility “is soon expected to become the ‘new normal’ for conducting business” in the United States (p. 2).

The European Union. Findings from recent studies and reports suggest somewhat similar trends in the European Union (EU) to those in the United States regarding the availability and use of workplace flexibility. The Third European Company Survey (ECS; Eurofound, 2015) was conducted in 2013 assessing organizations in all twenty-eight member-states of the EU. In line with the findings from the National Study of Employers in the United States, the ECS found that 66% of employers offered what was described as “flexitime” to at least some employees and 69% allowed at least one employee to utilize part-time work (Eurofound, 2015). Research trends indicate an increase in some forms of workplace flexibility across European countries, with part-time work being the most common, seeing major growth in recent years, in part, as a way for employees to manage work and nonwork demands (Beham, Präg, & Drobnič, Reference Beham, Präg and Drobnič2012; Eurofound, 2011). In a study assessing the timing of work in the twenty-eight EU countries during 2015, the Sixth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS; Eurofound, 2016) examined several common types of workplace flexibility policies and practices. The report identified that the majority of workers in the EU engaged in working time arrangements set by their organization with no possibility for change (56%). However, 18% of employees reported they had the ability to adapt their working hours within certain limits and 16% of employees reported they had complete control over the ability to determine the start and stop time of their workdays (Eurofound, 2016).

Despite the similarity to the United States regarding types of available policies, there were noticeable differences across EU regions (Eurofound, 2015; Giannikis, & Mihail, Reference Giannikis and Mihail2011). For instance, mostly western and northern EU countries (e.g., France, the United Kingdom, Denmark) indicated that 50% or more of organizations offered flexitime, with 90% of Denmark’s organizations offering at least some employees some degree of choice over the start and/or stop times of their work days. In contrast, several eastern EU countries (e.g., Croatia, Poland, Greece) had less than 50% of organizations offer at least some employees flexitime in 2013, which was a decrease from previous years’ surveys for some countries such as Bulgaria (Eurofound, 2015). The ECS report also points out that industry plays a large role in the extent to which organizations offer flexitime; as an example, 70% of organizations described as “financial” and 76% described as “other” offering flexitime to at least some employees compared to 56% of “construction” organizations. Despite reports of the rise of part-time work across Europe (Raghuram et al., Reference Raghuram, London and Larsen2001), the ECS (Eurofound, 2015) found there was stark variability across EU countries in the proportions of organizations offering at least one employee the ability to work part-time. The countries with the highest percentages of organizations offering part-time work in 2013 were again western and northern EU countries. Specifically, 93%, 90%, and 87% of organizations allowed at least one employee to work part-time in the Netherlands, Austria, and Belgium, respectively. However, only 14%, 22%, and 33% of organizations in Croatia, Portugal, and Cypress offered part-time work to at least one employee, respectively (Eurofound, 2015). Interestingly, while 66% of employees in the EU reported that it was “fairly easy” or “very easy” to take an hour or two off during working time to attend to nonwork demands in 2015, similar to the findings from the ECS, the 2015 EWCS found that there was striking variability across countries. Only 42% of employees in the Czech Republic reported having this flexibility option compared to 85% of employees in the Netherlands (Eurofound, 2016).

In a study examining the factor analytic structure of what the researchers labeled “working time arrangement bundles” across twenty-one European countries, Chung and Tijdens (Reference Chung and Tijdens2013) identified differences in usage of policies based on regional cluster. Specifically, southern European countries (e.g., Spain, Hungary) indicated low average scores of usage of both employee- and employer-centered work time arrangements. However, the northern European cluster (e.g., Sweden, Denmark, Poland) frequently utilized arrangements that benefitted both employers and employees, such as flexible working hours and part-time work. Finally, continental and Anglo European countries (where weekly working hours are longer; e.g., the United Kingdom, France, Belgium) utilized more employer-centered work time arrangements such as overtime and shift work (Chung & Tijdens, Reference Chung and Tijdens2013).

In comparison to other types of workplace flexibility, telework has been a relatively new arrangement for employees working in Europe (Raghuram et al., Reference Raghuram, London and Larsen2001) in comparison to organizations in the United States which have been utilizing telework for several decades (Gajendran & Harrison, Reference Gajendran and Harrison2007). However, the results of the 2015 EWCS indicate the gap is closing, with similar patterns in telework usage in the EU to the United States. Specifically the report states that while 70% of employees in EU countries work in a central, regular work location, 30% conduct their work in multiple locations. Although there is at least some degree of work conducted away from the main work site by employees across all EU countries, the largest proportions reported were in the Nordic countries (40%) whereas the lowest were in Turkey (17%; Eurofound, 2016).

It is worth noting that the ECWS definition of employees who work in multiple work locations includes those who are self-employed, work at client sites, work from home, and work from public spaces. Further, the study defines telework as the practice of mainly working from home, excluding individuals who are self-employed who always work from home (Eurofound, 2016). In other words, it is unclear the extent to which the employees in the ECWS have control over their arrangement. As researchers have argued, telework policies that do not include employee control over the arrangement are not truly flexible (Gajendran & Harrison, Reference Gajendran and Harrison2007; Thompson et al., Reference Thompson, Payne and Taylor2015). This may explain, in part, why the ECWS identified that individuals working from multiple locations were less likely to report that their working hours were a good fit with their family and social commitments (77%) than those who worked at a single main workplace (83%; Eurofound, 2016).

Researchers have identified trends regarding the cultural and regional differences in the availability, use, and outcomes associated with the various types of flex policies and practices across Europe (Raghuram et al., Reference Raghuram, London and Larsen2001; Stavrou & Kilaniotis, Reference Stavrou and Kilaniotis2010). Raghuram and colleagues (Reference Raghuram, London and Larsen2001) explain that shiftwork use has been associated with specific cultural values, such as high collectivism, low uncertainty avoidance, and high power distance. Similarly, the authors found associations between part-time work and low power distance as well as individualistic value systems.

Similarly, attitudes toward the amount of weekly work hours may also partially explain the frequency of use of various types of flexibility practices. Countries such as the United Kingdom view longer workweeks as socially acceptable, whereas France, the Netherlands, and Sweden have established more welfare models that have led to shorter workweeks (Eurofound, 2011). These trends have led to the expansion of part-time work as a means of managing work and nonwork demands. A particularly noteworthy reform occurred in France in 2016 when Law no. 2016–1088 was adopted by the French parliament and signed into law, in an effort to define what working time means (Eurofound, 2017). One of the most controversial provisions to the law was the “right to disconnect,” enacted in January 2017. The goal of this amendment was to encourage organizations to respect employees’ nonwork hours by enacting a fine of up to 1% of the employees’ total remuneration for organizations who fail to comply with the requirements surrounding the use of electronic communication after work hours (Boring, Reference Boring2017).

In addition to cultural distinctions, economic differences throughout the last few decades across European countries have impacted family development patterns, influencing the uptake of various family-related flexibility policies (Robila, Reference Robila2012). While policies such as maternity leave are very common and often even longer in organizations in Eastern Europe than Western countries (Robila, Reference Robila2012), other forms of workplace flexibility are less frequently observed. In addition, lack of access to quality and affordable childcare in some countries incentivizes some parents to utilize part-time work arrangements (Eurofound, 2011). Therefore, there seem to be a number of motives underlying the frequency of availability and usage of various policies and practices across the European Union.

Asia Pacific region. In contrast to findings in the United States and the EU, results from reports and studies examining countries in the Asia Pacific region suggest that employees working in these countries are less likely to have access to workplace flexibility policies and practices. In a study of representatives of multinational corporations operating in eleven countries in the Asia Pacific region, the Boston College Center for Work and Family (2007) found that 57% of respondents indicated their company has some sort of formal workplace flexibility policy in their operating country (but not necessarily all countries in which the company is located). Forty-eight percent of the respondents indicated that the workplace flexibility policies were available to all employees while 48% also said that these policies were only available to full-time employees.

The 2016 Hays Asia Salary guide assessed over three thousand employers across Asia on their hiring and salary practices, representing six million employees (Hays Recruitment, 2016). In line with the findings from the Boston College Center for Work and Family, the report found that 57% of employers indicated they allow flexible work practices. Of the employers offering flexible work practices, the most frequently offered policy was flexible working hours (70%) with the next most common practices being flexplace (49%) and part-time employment (29%). Only 10% of the employers indicated they offer job sharing (Hays Recruitment, 2016).

Although the availability of flexibility policies and practices has been notably lower in organizations operating in Asia Pacific region countries, some notable cultural trends have emerged across reports and research. For example, China’s collectivist and paternalistic culture influences specific policy availability and therefore the unique work–life obstacles facing Chinese employees. Specifically, the “one-child policy” has seemingly led to a decrease in childcare demands for married couples, suggesting a potential decrease in need for policies and practices providing employees with greater ability to manage work and life demands. However, both child and elder care duties are still disproportionately placed upon women who also predominately work full-time (Cooke & Jing, Reference Cooke and Jing2009). This imbalance in work and nonwork demands may mean that women in China and countries with similar cultures could benefit from increased access to flexibility policies and practices.

In a study of the experiences of 1,834 high-potential employees working in nine Asian countries, Sabattini and Carter (Reference Sabattini and Carter2012) identified that while 67% of men and 62% of women agreed that their organization provided enough flexibility to manage work and personal life demands (gender differences were driven by China, Malaysia, and Thailand), an implementation gap or “mismatch” existed between what employees felt they needed and what was offered by their organizations. Specifically, the authors identified a discrepancy for more than 80% of participants between the workplace flexibility available and their stated work–life needs. Similarly, the researchers found that women were less likely (46%) to aspire to achieve a senior executive role as their ultimate career position compared to men (64%). Both groups cited job pressures, long hours, stress on relationships, and other life priorities as the primary reasons for their decision not to pursue senior leadership (Sabattini & Carter, Reference Sabattini and Carter2012). These findings may be due in part to expectations for women to perform care-giving roles outside of the workplace. In other words, women in some Asian countries may be less likely to pursue their preferred career trajectories due to gendered cultural expectations as well as a lack of options to help them manage work and life demands. When asked about ways employers could help employees better manage work and life demands, participants indicated concerns of facetime and long hours, suggesting interest in flexible work arrangements, such as telecommuting and flextime (Sabattini & Carter, Reference Sabattini and Carter2012).

Some researchers have pointed out the importance of monetary and material rewards in alleviating work–life conflict issues for Chinese employees (Cooke & Jing, Reference Cooke and Jing2009). Employees with higher incomes are able to utilize their resources to offset nonwork demands (e.g., via childcare); conversely employees without the same resources are compelled to work more hours to supplement wages, thus contributing to a culture valuing long working hours (Chandra, Reference Chandra2012). This shift of focus on utilizing monetary resources as a method of work–life boundary management may contribute to a perceived lack of need for workplace policies that support employees’ ability to manage work and life demands. In other words, organizations may not clearly see a need for flexibility policies and practices because many employees are able to address work–life concerns by utilizing monetary resources earned through increased work hours, despite preferences for reduced work hours and increased work–life balance (Sabattini & Carter, Reference Sabattini and Carter2012).

In response to growing employee work–life conflict, some employers in China offer collective employee bonding opportunities as well as financial mechanisms for relieving these strains, rather than employee control-based work arrangements that are more commonly utilized in Western cultures. Specifically, some employers offer opportunities among and between employees to provide emotional support for one another as well as monetary donations to colleagues undergoing challenging life demands (e.g., sick child or parent; Cooke & Jing, Reference Cooke and Jing2009). Willingness and dedication to work in the face of family demands and conflict reflect the Chinese work ethic as well as the strong collectivist culture (Cooke & Jing, Reference Cooke and Jing2009). There is a general mindset across many Asian countries that employees should be present in the office (Boston College Center for Work and Family, 2007), which may translate to the infrequent availability and use of certain types of flexibility policies, such as telework arrangements.

Similar trends have developed in other Asian countries, where long work hours are the norm and gender inequality may be the driving mechanism underlying work–life conflict. In contrast to efforts made in Western countries, socialization in Asian countries still primarily reinforces gender-based division of labor (Chandra, Reference Chandra2012). In Japan, 60% of men work forty-three or more hours each week compared to only 30% of women who work the same long hours (Boston College Center for Work & Family, 2000). Organizations and human resource programs view work–life balance as an individual-level issue to be handled by employees, rather than through employer provided policies. Rather than offer policies that support flexibility in managing life demands around long working hours, employers attempt to reduce the negative effects experienced by employees from the long work hours (Chandra, Reference Chandra2012). Although many of the policies do not specifically target work–life balance, some organizations in Asian countries offer more formalized support for women’s roles as caregivers. For instance, in Bangladesh mothers (but not fathers) are eligible for three months of paid leave following childbirth (Jesmin & Seward, Reference Jesmin and Seward2011), a policy that is still not nationally prescribed in the United States. This suggests that providing policies and practices that reinforce stereotypical gender roles is an accepted aspect of work in some Asian countries.

Conceptualizations of “flexible” employment practices may differ cross-culturally such that some organizations focus on flexibility that meets organizational goals, rather than employees’ attempts to manage or gain control over their competing work and life demands. For example, MacVaugh and Evans (Reference MacVaugh and Evans2012) recently concluded that Japanese organizations have what the authors call “historically flexible employment practices” in comparison to Western organizations, utilizing part-time work, job-sharing, and short-term contracts. However, providing these types of policies may suggest an emphasis on employer-focused needs (e.g., client availability, overtime requirements) rather than a desire to identify a mutually beneficial arrangement to support both the employees and employer. In a multinational study of the impact of workplace flexibility on employees, Japanese employees reported they only somewhat agreed that flexible work options have a positive impact on work/family balance and job success, the lowest of any country surveyed (Bhate, Reference Bhate2013). Thus, it may be the case that flexibility policies in some organizations have not been viewed as particularly beneficial as they may not have been developed or implemented with the recognition that employee control over work demands is an important component of successful flexibility policies.

Flexibility in Africa. The prevalence of and access to policies offering employee control over when, where, or how work is conducted appear to be much less frequent for employees in African countries compared to Western countries. There has been very little research conducted examining organizational policies and practices in African countries, particularly those designed to facilitate the management of work and life demands. Clear estimates of the frequency of availability and use do not seem to be readily available at a comparable level to the other geographic regions discussed in this chapter. However, some research has been conducted that examines work–life issues in this area and the emerging trends are discussed below.

Managing work and nonwork demands has been conceptualized quite differently in the developing countries in Africa. One potential explanation for this is that the socioeconomic conditions of the labor force as well as ongoing health crises have motivated different policy concerns for working adults in these countries compared to employees working in Western, more industrialized countries (Smit, Reference Smit2011). As Dancaster and Baird (Reference Dancaster and Baird2016) explain, “not only has HIV/AIDS exacerbated care concerns, but also conditions of poverty, an increase in female labour force participation and minimal state infrastructure for those in need of care have contributed to what has been referred to as a ‘care crisis’ in South Africa” (p. 456). Due to these and other issues, little research has examined the prevalence of human resources policies and practices specifically aimed at improving work–family conflict in African countries. Instead, research has primarily focused on other types of healthcare policies and infrastructure support that organizations may offer.

While policies explicitly targeting work–family conflict are infrequent, formal attempts to support parenthood are prominent. Van der Meulen-Rodgers (Reference Van der Meulen Rodgers1999), states that “maternity leave provisions are just as prevalent among developing countries” as in developed and Western countries (p. 18). Similarly, many of the South African Development Community (SADC) countries provide forms of maternal health protection policies, such as policies in Madagascar and Tanzania that protect women from strenuous work and dangerous working conditions during pregnancy and up to three months following their recovery period (Smit, Reference Smit2011). Additionally, many SADC countries have legislation protecting pregnant women from working at night as well as the rights of women to breastfeed while at work (Smit, Reference Smit2011).

Despite the lack of research examining traditionally defined flexibility policies, some researchers have examined these issues by broadening the scope of inquiry. In a study examining the frequency and patterns of what the researchers labeled “work–care arrangements” available in organizations listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Dancaster and Baird (Reference Dancaster and Baird2016) found that the overall adoption of arrangements across all categories was low. Interestingly, the study identified that the most frequently adopted practice was organizationally provided information about HIV/AIDS facilities and programs (81%). The authors suggest this is not surprising given the legal recommendations for organizations in South Africa (Dancaster & Baird, Reference Dancaster and Baird2016). In addition, the authors also note that nearly 67% of the employers surveyed reported allowing employees to occasionally have flexible starting and finishing work times as well as nearly 45% of organizations reported allowing employees to work from home on an occasional basis. The authors found that both the proportion of females in senior management and the organizational size were characteristics that were associated with the adoption of flexible work arrangements in the surveyed African organizations (Dancaster & Baird, Reference Dancaster and Baird2016).

Implementing Workplace Flexibility in Organizations to Manage a Multinational Workforce

Having discussed how workplace flexibility practices vary in a number of regions in the previous sections of this chapter, we turn now to issues in implementing workplace flexibility in a multinational work force. In this section, we consider the benefits, challenges, and strategies related to implementing workplace flexibility in global organizations.

Benefits of implementing workplace flexibility in global firms. Workplace flexibility affects global business success by enabling operations to run on a 24/7 basis, from service operations to manufacturing. By expanding the available times employees can work, employers also expand the number of days and hours they are able to meet organizational goals. Specifically, this enhances an organization’s ability to produce work around the clock, which fosters efficient use of the workforce. Managing work 24/7 also helps foster the organizational ability to adjust hours to match customer availability. Specifically, companies can have operations running at different times around the world to match global customers’ needs. For example, employees in Slovenia can work a second shift to match hours of customers in the United States in addition to providing labor cost savings compared to hiring a similar workforce in the United States (Kossek & Thompson, Reference Kossek, Thompson, Allen and Eby2016). Creating shift schedules that provide employees with some degree of choice and control over their schedules may have the added benefit of increasing employee job control.

Workplace flexibility can also be used as part of a global supply chain to locate talent in the country where the skills and markets best match the organizational needs. This may foster the ability to adopt a customized menu of workplace flexibility practices linked to labor market solutions as part of a global workforce strategy. For example, in some countries, research and development (R&D) institutions may be located where particular universities and a highly skilled scientific workforce are available. However, in other countries, expertise may be provided on a cost-effective basis, rather than determined by the location of workers. For example, in order to maximize policy effectiveness, global firms might offer summer hours or telework in order to attract and retain exclusive R&D talent for their professional workforce on an infrequent basis, rather than relocate an entire facility to a remote location. In contrast, offering policies such as flextime and reduced work hours to support a large group of employees’ nonwork demands (e.g., time for family, classes to complete degrees) might be an effective strategy for maximizing workforce productivity of a service workforce located in a less developed country. Consequently, workplace flexibility policies should not only be used to facilitate employee management of work–life demands, but also to enable a firm to match the hours and schedules of employees in various regional labor markets to organizational needs in order to maximize productivity.

Another benefit of leveraging workplace flexibility in a global firm is that it can enhance attraction and retention by offering opportunities for a global career. Expatriates may be more likely to want to work for firms that allow employees to experience different work–life cultures from their home society. For example, the United States and the United Kingdom are known for being more work-centric and having less access to long-term paid family leave with shared care between a father and mother. In these countries, work is seen as the primary duty of a responsible citizen – more so than spending time with raising a family or caring for elders (Patrick, Reference Patrick2012). Thus, offering an expatriate opportunity to work in a country with a more balanced life-centric approach, such as in a Scandinavian subsidiary, may be a way to attract and retain talent as well as cultivate a flexible global workforce.

Challenges of global flexibility. One noteworthy challenge that scholars have identified for multinational organizations seeking to implement flexibility policies is that the link between uses of flexible working arrangements and beneficial outcomes may vary by culture and type of practice. For example, one comparative study found that as flexibility related to what the authors called “unsocial hours” increased (e.g., overtime, shift work, weekend work) in Anglo countries, turnover increased correspondingly (Stavrou & Kilaniotis, Reference Stavrou and Kilaniotis2010). In other words, the practices that may be effective in one country or industry may not be effective in another. Therefore, being able to adopt and manage different scheduling practices across cultures may add to organizational and management complexity and scheduling demands. This and other studies have raised questions about the comparative effectiveness of using similar flexible working arrangements internationally in global firms.

Further, the use of flexible practices may be beneficial for attracting a talented workforce, but organizational support for such policies as a means for managing work–life demands may depend on cultural factors. When used predominantly by women in countries lower in gender equality, flexibility practices may serve as barriers to women’s labor force participation rather than facilitators. For example, one study of organizations across eight European countries found that organizations in countries high in gender empowerment were supportive of part-time work options, which corresponded to higher proportions of women employees. However, for organizations in countries that were lower in gender empowerment, the adoption of part-time work only corresponded to a greater proportion of women when there were labor shortages (Stavrou, Casper, & Ierodiakonou, Reference Stavrou, Casper and Ierodiakonou2015). The authors contend that some organizations may offer workplace flexibility as a mechanism to support work–life balance, or in contrast, others may simply offer these policies to meet organizational recruitment goals or needs (Stavrou et al., Reference Stavrou, Casper and Ierodiakonou2015). Although these practices can be successful in attracting women to the labor market, they are likely to simultaneously serve as a barrier to women’s advancement to higher-level leadership positions, as few men use these practices, particularly in cultures that have rigidly prescribed gender roles. Thus, flexible work practices can serve to reinforce gender segregation as well as gendered working-time regimes in occupational groups and therefore limit women’s long-term ability to advance their careers (Kossek, Su, & Wu, Reference Kossek, Thompson, Allen and Eby2016).

Another important challenge in managing workplace flexibility globally, compared to the United States, is that there are varying legal restrictions in the implementation of flexibility policies. For example, workplace flexibility is collectively bargained for in some countries, such as Australia. One study (Berg, Kossek, Baird, & Block, Reference Berg, Kossek, Baird and Block2013) found that unpaid or family and health leave and paid annual vacation leave were much more likely to be in the collective bargaining contract in Australian universities unlike their US counterparts. Employers in global firms headquartered in countries where union contracts do not cover workplace flexibility will need to develop their knowledge in how to implement workplace flexibility as a collective workforce benefit.

A third important challenge for multinational flexibility is the perceived lack of facetime, or reduced benefits from face-to-face interaction (Van Dyne, Kossek, & Lobel, Reference Van Dyne, Kossek and Lobel2007). Managers and colleagues of employees working in other geographic locations may have trouble communicating at a distance through technology. This may lead to perceptions of poor performance due to miscommunication or failure to set expectations and goals. Colleagues may find working cooperatively in a new format using unfamiliar equipment to be an added challenge to the already present communication barriers. Further, additional obstacles may surface for employees working in virtual teams or in remote locations, such as lack of cross-cultural awareness and stigmas surrounding cultural differences.

Strategies for successful global flexibility. Organizations seeking to successfully implement workplace flexibility with a global strategic view should first recognize and understand variation in regional and cultural values. However, an important consideration for global firms is that while there are many comparative studies on workplace flexibility at the country level assessing the availability of different types of flexibility across nations, there is very little international work on workplace flexibility using organizational-level data (Chung & Tijdens, Reference Chung and Tijdens2013). One useful tool for employers seeking to develop nuanced strategies across the EU is the European Establishment Survey on Working Time and Work–Life Balance (ESWT), which examines the different types of workplace flexibility practices used within a firm to foster functional skill, job, or headcount flexibility while simultaneously considering employees’ work preferences for managing work and personal life demands. Another important consideration is Chung and Tijdens’ (Reference Chung and Tijdens2013) three clusters of flexibility regimes: 1) a southern European cluster with Hungary and Slovenia where most employers do not commonly offer workplace flexibility policies to serve either employer or employee interests; 2) a northern European country cluster that includes the Czech Republic and Poland, where workplace flexibility practices are frequently used by both employees and employers; and 3) a third cluster involving the main European continent countries as well as Anglo-Saxon countries, where flexibility is used mainly to meet employer needs with some moderate attention to employee preferences. Organizations in the third cluster typically offer more flexibility options than the first (the southern European countries) but less than the highly employee-centric, labor market-responsive Northern countries of the second cluster. Multinational organizations seeking to implement global workplace flexibility policies should identify how regional differences in preferences for and availability of workplace flexibility can influence the success of specific policies across sites. Utilizing knowledge of regional differences can help in the successful design and implementation of cross-national policies and practices within a single organization.

A second strategy organizations may consider is to design global flexibility policies that allow for customization across geographic locations (as laws, customs, and cultural values differ quite a bit depending on area). This approach may vary by level and nature of the global workforce. For example, large multinationals (e.g., IBM, Facebook) might adopt a global calendar with commonly utilized workdays and similar telework policies for the professional and manager workforce. However, for workers at the middle and lower levels, organizations might adopt the holiday calendar of the local country as the hours and working time may vary greatly across nations.

A third useful strategy might be to adopt employee training for employees on how to work with other employees across global time zones. Here, employees and managers might be trained in how to work and communicate with employees working at a distance via technology as well as how to overcome barriers that can cause remote employees to be viewed as less effective than face-to-face colleagues due to lack of facetime and communication issues. Training in cultural intelligence to show patience and understanding of accents and learning to speak slowly when on a conference call may be useful for enabling a virtual global workforce. Additionally, training in managing boundaries when working across time zones to allow employees to feel more in control of their working time (Kossek & Thomson, Reference Kossek, Thompson, Allen and Eby2016) may be useful for global teams to be able to respect the flexible working hours of colleagues in another time zone. Here the teams might also engage in role play to discuss how to respect the national holidays, leisure time, and sleep hours of remote colleagues as well as agree to core global working hours so that some employees in one country are not always expected to take 2 a.m. calls when working with colleagues or customers across time zones. Finally, setting clear expectations among team members about communication patterns and task deadlines can facilitate positive work experiences.

Areas for Future Research

Given the vast differences in the amount of research assessing workplace flexibility across geographic regions, there is a clear need for additional research assessing both availability and use of common forms of flexibility in areas where little research has been conducted. For example, little research to date has adequately examined the frequency of availability and use of major types of flexible policies and practices in African countries, South American countries, or Australia. Similarly, little research has compared policies usage and effectiveness within multinational organizations located in meaningfully different geographic regions.

Additionally, future research is needed to understand how specific and unique cultural differences relate to flexibility availability and use, particularly in regards to relatively understudied or geographically specific cultural values. For example, Ashforth and colleagues (Reference Ashforth, Kreiner and Fugate2000) maintain that the need for segmentation of work and life roles may differ as a function of cultures. Therefore, organizations in countries whose cultures value separation between work and life demands may be less likely to offer flexibility policies such as telework.

Finally, an important avenue for future research is the relationship between policies and societal and labor force outcomes. Specifically, many organizations offer workplace flexibility policies so that employees can more easily manage work and nonwork demands. However, as previously discussed, some organizations (and cultures) do not view this as the goal of these policies, but rather flexibility is a means to meet organizational goals (e.g., attracting a sufficient labor force). Differences in gender roles and expectations of the demographics of the workforce across countries may reveal interesting patterns relative to the prevalence of flexibility policies as societal values shift. Relatedly, as multinational organizations continue to grow in number, their expansion may correspond with cultural shifts in expectations of the workforce.

Conclusions

Implementing successful global workplace flexibility initiatives requires considerable theoretical knowledge and cultural awareness as the meaning and application of flexibility differs vastly both within and across countries. It is critical for multinational organizations wishing to utilize flexibility to meet their own needs and expand practices to take time to become familiar with the interests of the various stakeholder groups when designing and executing new approaches to flexibility.

Research suggests that flexibility is increasing in availability and use across the world. As cultural values and norms shift, so too will organizational practices designed to meet the demands of the workforce. As a part of a new, results-driven work culture, many organizations have begun to embrace the benefits that flexible options can provide to meet client, employee, and organizational goals. However, in order to remain competitive in a global marketplace, companies must also recognize the nuanced nature of implementing international business strategies.

The Importance of Organizational Culture from a Work–Family Perspective

Organizational culture can be broadly defined as a shared set of assumptions, values, and beliefs (Schein, Reference Schein2010). These are implicit notions, which are expressed and communicated partly in symbolic form; they are taught to organizational newcomers as the correct way to think and feel, via stories and myths about the organization’s history (Alvesson, Reference Alvesson2013; Schein, Reference Schein2010). Employees use the information inferred during this process of socialization to guide their behavior; they also observe the behavior of other organizational members, particularly leaders, to gauge which actions are likely to be useful and promote success (Schneider, Ehrhart, & Macey, Reference Schneider, Ehrhart and Macey2013). In this way, organizational culture serves as a means of signaling to employees how they are expected to manage their work and family roles. For example, do leaders endorse the value of nonwork interests and activities and role-model behaviors, such as leaving the workplace before dinnertime? Or do promotions and status come only to those who enact the role of the “ideal worker” by visibly working long hours and prioritizing job-related tasks over family time?

Assumptions, beliefs, and values among organizational members regarding the extent to which the organization exhibits support for its employees’ efforts to balance work and family responsibilities is referred to as work–family culture (Thompson et al., Reference Thompson, Beauvais and Lyness1999). Work–family culture can be viewed as a type of organizational support, and is generally held to incorporate such factors as supervisory support (both instrumental and emotional), organizational time demands on employees, and perceived career consequences of using work–family benefits or flexible work practices (Jahn, Thompson, & Kopelman, Reference Jahn, Thompson and Kopelman2003; Thompson et al., Reference Thompson, Beauvais and Lyness1999). Organizational cultures supportive of work–family issues have been shown to impact a number of employee outcomes – perceptions of work–family support have been linked to greater life satisfaction, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment, and decreased turnover intentions and absenteeism (see Andreassi & Thompson, Reference Andreassi, Thompson, Korabik, Lero and Whitehead2008, and Shockley, Thompson, & Andreassi, Reference Shockley, Thompson, Andreassi, Major and Burke2013, for a review). In addition, perceptions of a supportive work–family culture have been related to lower levels of work stress and general psychological strain (Beauregard, Reference Beauregard2011a; Thompson & Prottas, Reference Thompson and Prottas2006).

Organizational cultures that demonstrate support for employees’ efforts to manage work and family responsibilities are also associated with employee outcomes directly related to the combination of work and family roles. This support has been shown to reduce time- and strain-based conflict between domains, and increase positive spillover of emotions, knowledge, and skills. Individuals who perceive a supportive work–family culture within their organizations report lower levels of both work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict, and those whose supervisors exhibit family-supportive behaviors report higher levels of both work-to-family enrichment and family-to-work enrichment (Beauregard, Reference Beauregard2011a; Greenhaus, Ziegert, & Allen, Reference Greenhaus, Ziegert and Allen2012; Odle-Dusseau, Britt, & Greene-Shortridge, Reference Odle-Dusseau, Britt and Greene-Shortridge2012; Shockley et al., Reference Shockley, Thompson, Andreassi, Major and Burke2013).

Work–family culture also directly influences employees’ choices regarding how to manage their work and family roles, by operating as either an incentive or an impediment to the utilization of work–family or flexible working initiatives. The extent to which employees perceive that the culture of their organization encourages or discourages the use of these initiatives has a considerable impact on the use of these practices. Prevailing organizational cultures often inhibit the use of work–family practices, with employees feeling unable to utilize available policies due to organizational values emphasizing the importance of working long hours and being visibly present in the workplace (Beauregard, Reference Beauregard2008; Shockley & Allen, Reference Shockley and Allen2010). When working from home or a reduced hours load results in being perceived as less committed and less ambitious by managers and colleagues, the career risks of policy utilization can be viewed as too high.

When organizations are seen as providing a supportive environment for the reconciliation of work and family demands, employees are more likely to make use of the family-friendly initiatives offered (Andreassi & Thompson, Reference Andreassi, Thompson, Korabik, Lero and Whitehead2008). The social context plays an important role here, signaling what is considered acceptable practice in an organization (Beauregard, Reference Beauregard, Kaiser, Ringlstetter, Pina e Cunha and Eikhof2011b). For instance, research has found that managers whose colleagues use flexible work arrangements are more likely to make use of these practices themselves (Kossek, Barber, & Winters, Reference Kossek, Barber and Winters1999; Lambert, Marler, & Gueutal, Reference Lambert, Marler and Gueutal2008). Seeing this tangible evidence that work–family initiatives are valued by other organizational members provides reassurance to employees that they will not be disadvantaged if they decide to take up these arrangements themselves. When senior managers in particular make use of work–family initiatives, they are helping to create an organizational culture in which family commitments are compatible with career advancement or high-level performance (Thompson, Reference Thompson, Poelmans and Caliguiri2008).

The Impact of National Culture on Organizational Work–Life Perspectives

Organizational work–family culture is influenced to a considerable extent by national culture. National culture may impact the organization’s expectations of how individuals will manage work and family roles, which in turn may affect the organization’s demands upon employees’ time and energy, the types of policies it offers that are aimed at promoting work–life balance, and the culture of support for employees’ work–life balance. At the individual-level, national culture may influence an individual’s preferences for managing multiple life roles; individuals may be more likely to prioritize roles that are most consistent with their own core values, which are, in part, shaped by their national culture. The concept of national culture builds on the idea that when groups of individuals engage in a shared experience, a shared perception of culture is established (House & Javidan, 2004). Donley, Cannon, and Mullen (Reference Donley, Cannon and Mullen1998) describe how this shared culture is developed at the national-level: “national culture as we view it is not a characteristic of individuals or nation states but of a large number of people conditioned by similar background, education, and life experience” (p. 607). The literature on national culture has identified specific dimensions of culture that differ across national boundaries, such as individualist versus collectivist beliefs; long-term versus short-term orientations; high levels of power inequality versus low levels; masculinity versus femininity; and achievement versus ascription (Hofstede, Reference Hofstede1980; Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, Reference Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner1998). Although the impact of national culture has long been ignored in work–family research, recent literature has sought to better understand how dimensions of national culture influence organizational work–family culture (Powell, Francesco, & Ling, Reference Powell, Francesco and Ling2009).

Powell et al. (Reference Powell, Francesco and Ling2009) identified four dimensions of national culture that influence perceptions of the work–family interface from both conflict and enrichment perspectives: individualism versus collectivism, gender egalitarianism, humane orientation, and specificity versus diffusion. These dimensions influence organizational culture and policies and, in turn, the work–family role demands placed on employees. For example, cross-cultural research on human resource management (HRM) practices demonstrates links between national-level collectivism and organizational provision of employee programs such as maternity leave, career break schemes, flexible benefit plans, housing assistance, and contributions toward children’s education (Huo & von Glinow, Reference Huo and von Glinow1995; Quinn & Rivoli, Reference Quinn and Rivoli1991; Sparrow & Budhwar, Reference Sparrow and Budhwar1997). This body of research demonstrates that in collectivistic national cultures, organizational work–family cultures may place greater emphasis upon supporting employees’ families directly. In more individualistic national cultures, organizational work–family cultures may be more likely to reflect the values of independent choice and action, and provide support in the form of greater individual control over work schedule flexibility so that employees can combine paid work and family life as they see fit.

These national cultural values may also transmit themselves to individual work–family role preferences. For example, individuals in collectivist cultures tend to identify themselves in relationship to the larger social group (or “collective”), whereas in individualist cultures, the self is more likely to be perceived as a unique and independent entity (Markus & Kitayama, Reference Markus and Kitayama1991). While employees working in collectivist cultures may perceive working long hours to be a necessary sacrifice for the good of the family, employees from individualist cultures may interpret long hours of work as sacrificing one’s family role for the pursuit of individual achievement (Powell et al., Reference Powell, Francesco and Ling2009). For example, Yang et al. (Reference Yang, Spector, Sanchez, Allen, Poelmans, Cooper and Antoniou2012) found that despite working the same number of hours, individuals from individualistic countries perceived higher workloads and the relationship between these workload perceptions and greater job dissatisfaction and turnover intentions was stronger than for their collectivist counterparts. In addition, the more tightly coupled social roles found in collectivist cultures may also influence perceptions of the work–family interface (Hofstede, Reference Hofstede1980; Powell et al., Reference Powell, Francesco and Ling2009). While employees in individualistic cultures may care for and be supported by their individual family unit, employees in more collectivist cultures may work to benefit the larger society and in turn receive support from a larger community in managing work and family needs.

National differences in gender egalitarianism may also influence experiences of the work–family interface (Powell et al., Reference Powell, Francesco and Ling2009). For example, in societies with pronounced differences in social roles for men and women, women may have greater domestic responsibilities that increase their levels of work–family conflict (Karimi, Reference Karimi2008). In national cultures where gender roles are less differentiated, unpaid work related to caregiving and household maintenance may be more equally shared. Workplace cultures may therefore be more attuned to the need for supporting employees’ nonwork commitments, because a more equal division of household labor means that both male and female employees will require work–family support. In support of this notion, Lyness and Kropf’s (Reference Lyness and Kropf2005) study of twenty European countries found that national gender egalitarianism was positively related to a supportive work–family culture and flexible work arrangements within organizations.

Humane cultures are characterized by investment in the well-being of others, supportive and kind relationships, an interest in belonging or association with the larger group, and low levels of discrimination (House & Javidan, 2004). Similar to collectivist cultures, these values are likely to foster organizational cultures that are more supportive of employees in general. Employees in humane cultures may experience greater levels of support in managing their home and work roles (Powell et al., Reference Powell, Francesco and Ling2009), via the provision of family-friendly HRM practices and/or encouragement, understanding, and flexibility offered by sympathetic supervisors.

National cultures also differ according to the level of specificity, in which public and private roles are held separate, versus levels of diffusion, in which public and private roles are more likely to blend together (Powell et al., Reference Powell, Francesco and Ling2009). For example, China represents a diffuse culture in the sense that personal relationships are an important component to business relationships (Powell et al., Reference Powell, Francesco and Ling2009). This is reflected in organizational cultures that expect people to spend time socializing with work clients and colleagues outside of the traditional working hours; in a sense, individuals blend work and personal roles. Specificity is similar to Nippert-Eng’s (Reference Nippert-Eng1996) construct of work–life role segmentation and suggests that individuals have strong boundaries between work and family roles. In more diffuse cultures, there is likely to be greater integration (Nippert-Eng, Reference Nippert-Eng1996) of work and family roles. These differences across national cultures are likely to influence not only the segmenting or integrating nature of the work environment that organizations offer, but also the preferences of the employees native to those cultures. For example, a more diffuse national culture may manifest itself in an organizational culture that permits or encourages employees to work from home, to bring children in to the office after school or during school holidays, and to attend organization-sponsored events with their families. This environment, which allows for greater integration of work and family roles, may also promote individual preferences for integration. A national culture characterized by greater specificity is more likely to give rise to organizational cultures that expect employees to keep their work and family lives separate, as well as individuals who prefer work–family segmentation. In these environments, organizational cultures may provide employees with the tools to do so, such as family-related leaves of absence or access to childcare services that enable parents to work full-time hours.

National culture differences are inextricably linked to structural differences across national work systems and societies (Ollier-Malaterre & Foucreault, Reference Ollier-Malaterre and Foucreault2016). At the national level, culture plays a role in shaping institutional or regulatory frameworks, as the elected officials who initiate and maintain such frameworks and structures do so in a way that reflects the culture in which they operate. These culture-infused national institutional or regulatory frameworks are then likely to influence organizational policy on work–family relationships, as well as how individual workers organize these roles in their lives (Piszczek & Berg, Reference Piszczek and Berg2014). For example, Sweden’s recent move to a six-hour workday will likely influence both organizational and individual approaches to work and family roles. Organizations may need to restructure work schedules and activities to match the reduced schedules of their workers, and individuals may be able to scale back paid care for dependents and invest more time in the home environment (Matharu, Reference Matharu2015). Ollier-Malaterre and Foucreault (Reference Ollier-Malaterre and Foucreault2016) describe the combined influence of culture and national structure as setting the premise for “social practices” for the work–family interface, which they define as “the ways in which the coexistence of multiple domains is experienced by individuals and by organizations and the behaviors and decisions that they enact to address this coexistence” (p. 4).

The Consequences of Alignment and Misalignment between National and Organizational Cultures

Above, we have described how national culture and institutions may influence organizational culture such that the two levels of culture are in alignment. However, this may not always be the case. Organizations with a diverse, cross-cultural workforce may face particular challenges in finding ways to align national and organizational cultural considerations. The organizational culture of multinational firms is often strongly shaped by the national culture of their country of origin, the characteristics of which may or may not match those of the national cultures of their global employees. For example, American firms operating in Japan may find that their shorter-term, profit-oriented, individualistic operating cultures struggle to motivate Japan-based employees who may possess more collectivist and long-term perspectives on the goals of work. Person–environment fit (P–E fit) occurs when an organization supplies an environment that aligns or is congruent with employee goals and values (Edwards, Reference Edwards1996). P–E fit research focuses primarily on organizational culture and the characteristics of individual employees, but we propose that this theoretical approach can be extended to incorporate the influence of national-level culture on fit or lack thereof. Employees whose expectations and preferences for managing work and family roles have been shaped by a particular national culture may find these expectations challenged when they enter an organization whose work–family culture is influenced by a very different national culture. For instance, an individual from a highly humane national culture may join an organization with the expectation of finding assistance with combining work and family responsibilities. This individual may perceive a lack of fit if the employer has a less humane organizational culture and expects employees to be self-reliant in managing the work–family interface. In contrast, an employee from a national culture low in gender egalitarianism who enters an organization with an individualistic culture may perceive a good degree of fit, because both cultural environments are characterized by low levels of work–family supports and the expectation that family commitments are outside of the employer’s remit.

Person–environment fit across the work–family interface is associated with positive outcomes for both individuals and organizations, including well-being and work satisfaction (Edwards & Rothbard, Reference Edwards and Rothbard1999), increased productivity (Goodman & Svyantek, Reference Goodman and Svyantek1999), reduced turnover intentions (Verquer, Beehr & Wagner, Reference Verquer, Beehr and Wagner2003), and greater levels of organization citizenship behavior (Hoffman & Woehr, Reference Hoffman and Woehr2006). However, when there is misalignment between an individual’s work–family role preferences and the organizational environment, negative consequences may result. From an individual perspective, research has demonstrated that lack of fit may generate work–family conflict and stress (Cable & Judge, Reference Cable and Judge1997; Edwards & Rothbard, Reference Edwards and Rothbard1999). From an organizational perspective, lack of fit may result in reduced productivity and increased turnover intentions (Goodman & Svyantek, Reference Goodman and Svyantek1999; Verquer, Beehr & Wagner, Reference Verquer, Beehr and Wagner2003). This P–E fit research cited above does not take national culture into account, but we argue that national culture has a substantial role to play in determining the fit between employees’ preferences for managing work and family roles, and their organizations’ demands for how the work–family interface should be dealt with.

Misalignment between national and organizational culture can also negatively impact the effectiveness of organizational programs designed to help employees meet work and family demands. For example, global pharmaceutical leader Merck and Company, Inc. is familiar with the challenges associated with balancing global organizational culture with the individual national cultures present in their subsidiaries in over seventy countries worldwide (Muse, Reference Muse2011). Known in the United States as a leader in offering workplace flexibility and family-supportive benefits, Merck witnessed uneven adoption and implementation of their flexible working initiative abroad (Muse, Reference Muse2011; Working Mother, 2015). In order to ensure that a revised flexible working policy addressed the needs of employees across cultures, the organization launched a research initiative to identify the needs, values, and perspectives of employees from all seventy-seven countries, followed by a process of country-by-country review and implementation in order to ensure alignment with specific cultural and institutional frameworks (Muse, Reference Muse2011). The results of the program have demonstrated strong cross-national acceptance and satisfaction with levels of workplace flexibility offered, demonstrating the importance of aligning organizational and national expectations (Muse, Reference Muse2011). Building on the findings reviewed in this chapter, we argue for the importance of alignment between national and organizational work–family culture, and propose future research on this topic based on P–E fit. To guide this research, we develop a new theoretical model of global work–family culture that addresses the contributors to and consequences of alignment and misalignment between national culture and organizational work–family culture. This model is presented in Figure 30.1.

Figure 30.1 Model of global work–family culture.

Model of Global Work–Family Culture

As reviewed thus far, national culture influences both work–family policies offered by organizations as well as work–family culture within organizations. Therefore, the first set of propositions for this model are as follows:

Further, we argue that national cultures, through their relationship with organizational work–family policies and work–family culture, will be associated with organizational role demands.

In addition, we argue that national culture will be associated with individual work–family role preferences. Individuals’ beliefs and values are shaped in large part by national culture, and these in turn are likely to influence role enactment. For example, women in less gender-egalitarian national cultures may be more likely to prioritize a traditionally feminine role like caregiving over a traditionally male pursuit such as career advancement, either because they believe women should be the primary caregivers for family members, and/or because they believe that they will be socially penalized for doing otherwise.

For the global employee, a key element of the work–family interface is the alignment of one’s individual work–family role preferences with organizational work–family role demands. We posit that when alignment exists, individuals experience a coherent work–family role orientation: their values and preferences for managing work and family roles, influenced by their national culture, match the expectations of their organization, and their overall approach to the work–family interface is therefore consistent. A coherent work–family role orientation will result in both organizational benefits (e.g., organizational citizenship behaviors) and individual benefits (e.g., well-being and satisfaction with work–life balance). However, when individual work–family role preferences do not align with organizational work–family role demands, individuals experience a dissonant role orientation: their preferred approach to managing work and family roles does not match what their employer encourages or permits them to do, and their management of the work–life interface is therefore characterized more by conflict and compromise. With a dissonant work–family role orientation, individuals and organizations may be affected by work–family conflict, stress, reduced productivity, and turnover intentions. The following propositions reflect these outcomes of alignment:

An important consideration regarding the alignment of individual work–family role preferences and organizational work–family role demands is the diversity of cultural perspectives that are represented in a particular organizational environment. Similar to the challenge faced by Merck in the example cited earlier in this chapter, when there is a high degree of national culture diversity within the work environment, it is more difficult for organizations to develop a work–family culture that aligns with the diversity of employees’ work–family role preferences. Although Merck was able to counter these negative effects by adopting a more flexible approach to work–family supports, we argue that in the absence of a concentrated examination of both national and organizational work–family role culture, greater diversity of national cultures within an organization will be associated with less alignment overall between organizational role demands and individual work–family role preferences. As diversity increases, the more difficult it will be for a single contextual environment to meet the individual preferences of any single employee.

In sum, this model provides a new framework to enhance understanding of the interplay between national and organizational cultures and the influence of this interplay on individual and organizational outcomes.

Implications for Theory and Practice

This model seeks to contribute to theory on the work–family interface and person–environment fit by clearly defining the role of national culture in the alignment of organizational work–family culture and individual work–family role preferences. The incorporation of national culture as a confounding influence on values alignment broadens the scope of prior research on fit relating to the work–family interface (e.g. Cable & Judge, Reference Cable and Judge1997; Edwards & Rothbard, Reference Edwards and Rothbard1999). For example, it has been well established that individuals have preferences for the integration or segmentation of work and family roles and that organizations can offer integrated or segmented experiences, leading to person–environment fit or misfit for the individual worker (Kossek, Noe, & DeMarr, Reference Kossek, Noe and DeMarr1999; Kreiner, Reference Kreiner2006). This new model broadens the lens used to examine individual preferences and organizational offerings to better understand the cultural nature of their origins. Rather than attributing preferences to the individual alone or offerings to the whim of the organization, this model centers these positions in the context of national culture. By understanding the influence of national culture, both individuals and organizations may better assess personal preferences and environmental offerings (Hofstede, Reference Hofstede1980). In addition, the consideration of culture as driving preferences and offerings may help to reduce potential misattribution when conflict occurs; through misattribution there is a tendency to blame conflict on the individual or organization, rather than on the broader contextual environment (Ross, Reference Ross1977).

Several implications for practitioners can be derived from this framework. First, organizations need to consider the national cultural backgrounds of their employees as well as the diversity of cultures represented within the organization when considering their work–family policies. A starting point may be to conduct a strong analysis of the type of culture offered by the organization, as well as the preferred culture of current and prospective employees, in order to identify potential misalignment that could be harmful to both the organization and its employees. O’Reilly, Chatman, and Caldwell (Reference O’Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell1991) developed an organizational culture profile specifically aimed at assessing this cultural fit. Organizations may benefit from implementing assessment tools such as this in order to identify areas for concern.

In addition, as organizations expand globally and open offices in new geographical locations, national culture norms in terms of work and family roles must be taken into consideration when local work practices are established. Global organizations may find that they need to adhere to both emic (universally accepted) as well as etic (context-specific) work policies (Pearson & Entrekin, Reference Pearson and Entrekin2001). For example, a universally accepted policy may be that workers are offered a period of paid leave after having a child; however, a more context-specific policy might require local teams to specify the level of schedule flexibility or work-at-home options offered by the organization. In addition, organizations may find that different employees require different solutions even when co-located, due to their individual preferences and cultural background. Offering choice and giving employees greater control over the management of work and family roles may therefore reduce the likelihood of misalignment (Kelly, Moen, & Tranby, Reference Kelly, Moen and Tranby2011).

This chapter has reviewed the influence of national culture on organizational work–family culture, and assessed how the relationship between these two levels of culture impacts employee experiences of the work–family interface. Drawing on the construct of P–E fit, this chapter introduces the idea that national culture needs to be a more frequent consideration in the examination of factors that influence the alignment of organizational and employee needs and preferences with regard to the work–family interface. Particularly in the context of multinational organizations, a more nuanced consideration of the influence of national culture on P–E fit leads to important implications for practitioners with regard to the development of HR policies and practices. Greater understanding and recognition of the impact of national culture on both organizational work–family culture and individual work–family role preferences and demands will allow organizations to develop more flexible and supportive practices, which can engender more positive individual and organizational outcomes.

What is Family-Supportive Supervision?

The concept of family-supportive supervision originated from the general psychological social support literature (Cohen & Willis, Reference Cohen and Wills1985). Social support is generally defined as interpersonal interactions related to communication of emotional caring, tangible or instrumental help with problems, and sharing of information to help others make decisions to solve problems (House, Reference House1981). All of these forms of social support are resources employees can use to manage work–family conflicts and reduce or buffer work–life stressors. Explanations for why FSS might help reduce work–family conflict often draw on conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, Reference Hobfoll1989). The theory suggests that employees strive to seek a world in which they minimize stress, and resources, such as support from supervisors, are used to buffer role demands from the family that interfere with work roles and vice versa.

Much of the seminal work on FSS emanated from the United States and focused on construct development, measurement, and validation. Taking a cross-national view, having FSS origins in the United States is not surprising, given that supervisors reflect the daily frontline delivery of work–family support to workers in the country’s employment settings. The United States takes a market-minimalist approach to intervening in employers’ support of work–family management (Kossek, Reference Kossek, Lawler and O’Toole2006), and there are relatively few national or state government policies regarding workplace support of employees’ needs to manage work–family roles. This is in stark comparison to other industrialized nations where, for example, the right to request a flexible schedule or take a paid leave of absence for family care (e.g., after the birth or adoption of a child, or self or eldercare needs) may be facilitated by public laws (Kossek & Ollier-Malaterre, Reference Kossek, Ollier-Malaterre, Poelmans, Greenhaus and Las Heras Maestro2013). In fact, the United States is one of only a handful of industrialized nations that does not federally mandate paid family leave after the birth of a child (ibid.). Instead, employees’ access to work–family supportive practices in the United States is organizationally driven, with supervisors often serving as gatekeepers to work–family support policies (Kossek, Reference Kossek, Bianchi, Casper and King2005). The ability to use formal policies, which can often go under-utilized due to organizational cultural stigma (Thompson, Beauvais, & Lyness, Reference Thompson, Beauvais and Lyness1999), unsupportive climates and cross-domain relationships (Kossek, Noe & Colquitt, 2001), and is supervisor-driven and influenced by supervisors’ interpretation of norms regarding flexibility and work hours (Kossek, Barber, & Winters, Reference Kossek, Barber and Winters1999).

Supervisors make many decisions that informally affect employees’ abilities to manage family demands. For example, they establish work deadlines and help implement staffing and cross-training policies that may facilitate or deter employees’ abilities to have flexibility in when, where, or how long they work. They also conduct assessments regarding the quality and quantity of employees’ productivity. Such attitudes and behaviors shape the degree to which supervisors are seen as demonstrating attitudes or behaviors that are seen by employees as socially helpful for managing their family role demands. When work–family policies are involved, direct supervisors often enable access, as well as make attributions about work–family impacts on employee behaviors (e.g., job performance) that have linkages to other employment decisions influencing pay, performance evaluation, and promotion, and even possible stigma following their use (Kossek, Reference Kossek, Bianchi, Casper and King2005).

Key Future Directions for Global and Cross-Cultural FSS

We see the expansion of FSS research globally and cross-culturally to be a key direction for future work–family research as the impact of national policies and cross-cultural contexts have a significant impact on work–family research across the globe (Korabik, Aycan, & Ayman, Reference Korabik, Aycan and Aymanforthcoming). Below we conclude with several themes for future research. These include the need to attend to cultural issues shaping construct development and measurement, giving greater attention to intervention work that takes into account multi-level country and institutional influences, and the need for more cross-national samples to attend to moderators of job level, gender, and organizational size related to globalization and stage of economic development.

Conclusions

This chapter has examined family-supportive supervision (FSS) origins and its expansion cross-nationally. We have discussed how the construct has evolved from measurement of perceptions to also include assessments of behaviors; and studies around the globe are demonstrating linkages between FSS and work–family conflict and organizational effectiveness. The movement to focus on measuring supervisor behaviors has fostered a new field of research on leadership development and training and interventions that needs increased attention in the design and implementation of studies outside of the United States. Given the increasingly global nature of work, it is important for research on supportive supervision for families and personal lives to evolve to capture cultural diversity within and across national borders.