Cultural Variation in Barriers to Hiring People with Disabilities
Date
2022-09-08
Authors
Milum, Jessica
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Persons with disabilities (PWD) are one of the last groups to have their equal rights recognized. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has (as of 6 May 2022) been ratified by 185 countries (UN, 2022). However, PWD continues to experience barriers in their attempt to gain and maintain employment. Data with regard to the employment rate of PWD is hard to come by. However, PWD are universally underemployed as compared to the base employment rate (Source), and there seems to be a wide variety in the employment rates of PWD around the world (Source). Stone and Colella (1996) identified three clusters of factors that affect the treatment of PWD in organizations. These were the socio political context, the climate of the organization, and managerial attitudes toward PWD. In this study, we explore the extent to which societal culture influences the disability inclusion climate (see Iwanaga et al., 2021) of organizations. We propose that societal culture influences this aspect of the organization through two related mechanisms. The first is that societal culture influences the institutions of society through the goals of these institutions, how they operate, and the rationale for their policies (Thomas & Peterson, 2018). The second mechanism of cultural influence suggests that the disability inclusion climate is a symptom or manifestation of the culturally based values and attitudes of managers.
Description
Keywords
Disability, participation barrier, disability inclusion climate, employment, workplace culture, disability acceptance, social regulatory policies, disability policies, legitimacy, horizontal individualism, vertical individualism, horizontal collectivism, vertical collectivism, managerial attitudes