DIFFERENCES IN RESILIENCE TO PROBLEMS OF WORK AT HOME IN FOUR COUNTRIES OF THE WESTERN BALKANS
Keywords:
resilience, work from home, similarities, differences, Balkan countriesAbstract
This research at the adequate samples comprising of 408 respondents from Serbia, 201 from Montenegro, 221 from Northern Macedonia and 201 from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the authors described psycho-social phenomena contributing to greater or lesser resilience in resolving problems, connected to work at/from home. In addition, differences and similarities among countries are examined and certain explanations on these differences are provided. The main conclusion is the psycho-social factors are connected with good resilience, which authors explain primarily as the fact that in social and economic context (great unemployment rate and insecure employment, low and insecure wages, poor exercise of social rights, undeveloped market, low level of consumerism, insufficient development of infrastructure regarding development of information and communication technologies, etc.) respondents feel socially privileged. Those privileges are perceived in professional autonomy, better wages, as well as better control and planning of professional future. Among countries, there are significant differences; and the greatest differences are between respondents from Montenegro and all the others. Respondents from Montenegro estimate work at/from home significantly less favorable than all the others; they have less time for activities and hobbies, they can pay less attention to family and partner, and they find it more difficult to separate work from personal life, they show greater tension and anxiety in work, they sleep badly, and family and friendssupport them less than all the others. Jobs that are significantly below their professional education seem to be demotivating. Respondents from Northern Macedonia provided similar answers to these, whilst respondents from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina showed much more optimistic image. The authors explain these differences by specific anachronistic collective and psychological patterns, generating strong individual and group narcissism and decrease potentials for resilience to problems connected to work at/from home.
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