Managers’ Conceptions and Their Effects on the Perception of Employees with Disabilities

Abstract

The research aimed to identify managers’ conceptions of disability and the relationship that was established between these conceptions and their perception of the persons with disabilities (PWD) performance, bond, benefits of hiring, and training needs. 257 managers answered a questionnaire in order to identify conceptions of disability in organizations. Descriptive statistics, factorial analysis, and hierarchical analysis of grouping were performed while using IBM Statistic 20.0.0. The results show that managers who have the spiritual and the conception based on inclusion perceive the insertion of PWD as beneficial to the organization. Those who conceive disability as a question of normality perceive the PWD performance as inferior to those without disabilities, which implies that PWDs should be segregated; and, the managers who perceive disability as a social problem are likely to place PWDs in the workplace according to their potential. The results can be fruitfully used by managers, human resources’ professionals, academics, and the society to promote inclusion.

Disability, Human Resources and Behavioral Economics: The Labour Inclusion Case of Ilunion Hotels of the Costa del Sol (Spain)

“…With no intention to be exhaustive, the concept of "disability" can be defined as an inability or limitation to participate in the normal life activities, caused by physical, intellectual, cognitive, sensory, emotional, psychiatric or psychological problems [23,32,33]. In Article 1, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [34] says that: "Persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others" [10].…”

“…People with disabilities problems and their relationship with social exclusion, labour market and human resources are issues that have been increasingly studied in recent years, highlighting the work of [1,7,10,23,35,36] or [37], among others.…”

“…Recent research has pointed out that one of the main underlying causes of the social exclusion and higher difficulties of people with disabilities is the way that the rest of society perceives them and acts in relation to the collective [8,9]. According to [10], in some European countries it is starting to grow the idea that the negative attitudes towards people with disabilities is not only important in terms of their social and labour integration, but also because these barriers are provoking a loss of an important potential resource (in terms of human capital, innovative capacity and business productivity, see [11][12][13][14]). Therefore, labour integration of people with disabilities also benefits the whole society, because people with paid employment have more self-esteem, they will carry out a full participation in society and they can start personal projects which contributes economically [15].…”

“…Thus, the second section of this article briefly presents the behavioral economics theoretical model which could be explaining the situation (based on [4,31]) and delves into Special Employment Centres and their Support Units for Professional Activity, as similar to the concept of the ambassador of people with disabilities in the workplace [1]. In Section 3, methodology is described, that is to say, we used case study, content analysis and semistructured interviews with the hotels managers (following the same procedure such as [10], asking the managers of the organizations, supported by an online questionnaire based on the questionnaire used by [1]). The next section presents the results and implications of the empirical study.…”

Special Employment Centres, Time Factor and Sustainable Human Resources Management in Spanish Hotel Industry: Can Corporate Social Marketing Improve the Labour Situation of People with Disabilities?

“…The current COVID-19 pandemic is affecting PWD more negatively [15,16]. This group starts from a situation weighed down by a series of stigmas, prejudices in the perception and discrimination of the rest of the population [17][18][19][20]. This situation exacerbates their precariousness [16].…”