The Big Five Inventory (BFI) is a self-report measure designed to assess the high-order personality traits of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, the BFI was translated from English into 28 languages and administered to 17,837 individuals from 56 nations. The resulting cross-cultural data set was used to address three main questions: Does the factor structure of the English BFI fully replicate across cultures? How valid are the BFI trait profiles of individual nations? And how are personality traits distributed throughout the world? The five-dimensional structure was robust across major regions of the world. Trait levels were related in predictable ways to self-esteem, sociosexuality, and national personality profiles. People from the geographic regions of South America and East Asia were significantly different in openness from those inhabiting other world regions. The discussion focuses on limitations of the current data set and important directions for future research.

As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, a total of 17,804 participants from 62 cultural regions completedthe RelationshipQuestionnaire(RQ), a self-reportmeasure of adult romanticattachment. Correlational analyses within each culture suggested that the Model of Self and the Model of Other scales of the RQ were psychometrically valid within most cultures. Contrary to expectations, the Model of Self and Model of Other dimensions of the RQ did not underlie the four-category model of attachment in the same way across all cultures. Analyses of specific attachment styles revealed that secure romantic attachment was normative in 79% of cultures and that preoccupied romantic attachment was particularly prevalent in East Asian cultures. Finally, the romantic attachment profiles of individual nations were correlated with sociocultural indicators in ways that supported evolutionary theories of romantic attachment and basic human mating strategies.

Surveying 6509 managers from 24 countries/geopolitical entities, we tested the process through which individualism-collectivism at the country level relates to employees' appraisals of and reactions to three types of work demands (i.e., work hours, workload, and organizational constraints). Our multilevel modeling results suggested that, while working the same number of hours, employees from individualistic countries reported a higher perceived workload than their counterparts in collectivistic countries. Furthermore, relationships of perceived workload and organizational constraints with job dissatisfaction and turnover intentions were stronger in individualistic than in collectivistic countries. Importantly, results of supplementary analyses suggested that the cultural value of individualism-collectivism moderated the mediation effect of perceived workload between work hours and both job dissatisfaction and turnover intentions. Our findings highlight the need to expand contemporary theories of work stress by applying multilevel approaches and incorporating crossnational differences in dimensions such as individualism-collectivism while studying how employees appraise and react to important work stressors.

The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) is a commonly used life satisfaction scale. Cross-cultural researchers use SWLS to compare mean scores of life satisfaction across countries. Despite the wide use of SWLS in cross-cultural studies, measurement invariance of SWLS has rarely been investigated, and previous studies showed inconsistent findings. Therefore, we examined the measurement invariance of SWLS with samples collected from 26 countries. To test measurement invariance, we utilized three measurement invariance techniques: (a) multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MG-CFA), (b) multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (ML-CFA), and (c) alignment optimization methods. The three methods demonstrated that configural and metric invariances of life satisfaction held across 26 countries, whereas scalar invariance did not. With partial invariance testing, we identified that the intercepts of Items 2, 4, and 5 were noninvariant. Based on two invariant intercepts, factor means of countries were compared. Chile showed the highest factor mean; Spain and Bulgaria showed the lowest. The findings enhance our understanding of life satisfaction across countries, and they provide researchers and practitioners with practical guidance on how to conduct measurement invariance testing across countries.

Purpose -Because women's status in Latin American countries appears comparable to their status in organizations of more economically advanced nations, this paper probes the mystery of how and why these women fare relatively well in their careers, given that socioeconomic and cultural factors could limit their possibilities of achieving higher management positions. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach -Exploratory study of 162 Latin American women who demonstrated exceptional success by attaining first and second level positions in private organizations. They responded to a semi-structured interview of 49 closed-ended questions about career challenges and barriers, leadership style, ambition, personal goals and work-life balance, plus two open-ended questions about men and women's leadership differences and how they understand their success. Findings -Interviewees disagreed on issues of discrimination, recognized few serious professional career barriers and regarded work-life balance as their main challenge. They understood their success in terms of individual factors such as personality characteristics, performance and results, and their own leadership traits. Most admitted that machismo limits women's access to upper level positions. They recognized their ambition to attain power positions mainly for personal satisfaction, and their main goal was personal development and fulfilment. Research limitations/implications -Given the sample size per country, future research could include a more representative and large sample or concentrate on one country per region to establish relationships between women's personal characteristics and organizations' sector, or challenges faced and leadership style. Also family-owned companies as well as women entrepreneurs could contribute knowledge about women's leadership in these countries. Studying only national companies, a more neatly description of local culture and gender awareness in its organizational practices that hinder or promote women's leadership and participation in decision-making positions may be obtained. Transcultural studies that compare women's rise and upper management performance in countries where support from domestic help and extended family as well as cultural values are very different, could permit to understand more fully what it takes to reach top management positions and the weight that these particular cultural conditions have. Originality/value -This study is unique in shedding light on a multinational sample of Latin American female executives and their perceptions of their success, leadership style and barriers and challenges faced.