Work-home interface in a cross-cultural context: a framework for future research and practice

Abstract

With dual-income families on the increase, combining work and family obligations is a daily reality for many individuals. Unsatisfactory combinations of work and home duties can result in various unfavourable individual and organisational outcomes. Therefore, its proper understanding is essential in order to create adequate recommendations for interventions and prevention. There is a need for the development of theoretical frameworks that take cultural context into account in relation to work-home interface (WHI). In this paper a new framework is proposed; ‘the pyramid of intersecting domains of WHI’ that incorporates cultural context and other important work-life interface aspects. It builds on empirical findings of the intersectionality and work/family border theories. The pyramid consists of the following domains: the domain of work and home characteristics, the roles domain and the cultural domain, which intersect to determine the fourth side of the pyramid, that is, the observed WHI. Based on the pyramid several research propositions can be formulated. Implications for researchers and HR professionals are provided.

Keywords:

• Work-home research framework
• work-home interface
• cross-cultural
• intersectionality
• work/family border theory

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to Laura Hughes (PhD) and Emma Jansen for proofreading earlier versions of this article for issues related to English language.