The Lived Experiences of Leaders and Their Support of Employees Seeking to Gain Work-Life Balance and Job Satisfaction in a Cross-Cultural Environment

摘要

The automobile industry has transformed over the decades and plays a key role in any country's cultural, social, and economic development (Vickerman, 2012; Hickman, Givoni, Bonilla, & Banister, 2015). Leaders play important role in the overall transformation agenda in any organization as they relate with and direct employees. The study explored the lived experiences of leaders and their support of employees seeking to gain work-life balance and job satisfaction in the automobile industry in cross-cultural environment. Leaders' experience influences their behaviors, attitudes and relationships with employees and are factors that determine their support for employees seeking to gain work-life balance and job satisfaction in any cross-cultural setting. The factors are important considering that the automobile industry employs people from different cross-cultural environments. When leaders deploy work-life balance and job satisfaction benefits and incentives, employees and organizations could achieve optimal success. The results of this study indicate that cultural sensitivity, fairness, flexibility, and cultural frame/awareness are central to building cross-cultural relationship. Further, the results suggest that incentives and bonuses, training/tools, motivation, benefits, cultural support, good salary/wages, communication, and flexibility are vital to supporting employees' work-life balance and job satisfaction. Also, the results of this study demonstrated that employees can blossom, and are more productive when they have more time for themselves and are better trained on cross- culturally. Additionally, the study found that the challenges and barriers that leaders face in cross-cultural environment and global organizations are communication, social norms - attitudes, behaviors, skills & perceptions, work hours, nature of the business.