Psychosocial factors of successful adaptation to remote work in the Western Balkans

Abstract

In this study, psychosocial adaptation to remote work was examined on a representative sample of subjects from Western Balkans (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia). The research was conducted using a questionnaire adapted from the Psychosocial Adaptation Scale. The research goals were to describe the positive and negative aspects of psychosocial adaptation to working from home, and then to examine the country specific behavioral patterns, as well as to validate the psychometric properties of the used scale. The results showed that the psychosocial adaptation of the respondents was generally good. However, the respondents in all four countries were most affected by the lack of time for socializing with close people and the feeling of social isolation due to working from/at home. The authors see one of the reasons for the difficulty of enduring social isolation and loneliness in the more pronounced collectivist patterns of sociability in the countries of the Western Balkans than in Western countries. The respondents from Montenegro show significantly weaker psychosocial adaptation in a number of aspects compared to respondents from the other three countries. In this respect, the respondents from North Macedonia are similar to them only to a lesser extent, while the respondents from BiH and Serbia are the most similar to each other. The authors have offered possible explanations for these similarities and differences.

Keywords

• work from (at) home
• psychosocial adaptation
• bih
• montenegro
• north macedonia
• serbia