Thriving of employees with disabilities: The roles of job self‐efficacy, inclusion, and team‐learning climate

Abstract

With the growing global emphasis on welfare‐to‐work policies, an increasing number of people with disabilities (PWD) have entered the workforce. However, studies on PWD have focused primarily on company practices to accommodate PWD, with a limited understanding of factors affecting psychological integration of PWD into the workplace. This scarcity in research makes it difficult for managers to utilize the full work potential of PWD. To fill this research gap, the current study focuses on the job self‐efficacy of PWD and investigates how employee disability interacts with inclusion and team‐learning climate to affect job self‐efficacy, and in turn thriving at work. Using a sample of 485 employees in 114 teams, surveys found job self‐efficacy was a key intervening mechanism linking employee disability to thriving at work. These results suggest high workplace inclusion can buffer potential negative effects of disability at the individual level, strengthened further by a high team‐learning climate. The data supported a three‐way cross‐level interaction effect of disability, inclusion, and team‐learning climate on the thriving of employees with disabilities, through job self‐efficacy. Our results demonstrate the importance of inclusion and team‐learning climate to foster employee thriving in a diverse workforce.

What threatens retail employees' thriving at work under leader‐member exchange? The role of store spatial crowding and team negative affective tone

“…First, the findings on the positive relationship between LMX and retail employees' thriving provide evidence that a trusting and respectful relationship with one's direct supervisor serves as the proximal relational context enabling the focal employee's thriving. Extant research has predominantly corroborated Spreitzer et al's () conceptual model by demonstrating that influential workplace resources (such as work meaningfulness, knowledge, and coworker support; Niessen et al, ) and team contextual features (such as employee involvement climate, team learning climate, and network centrality; Cullen et al, ; Wallace et al, ; Zhu et al, ) foster employee thriving. Nevertheless, supervisors generally have intensive interactions with their employees, who stand as a prominent social context providing various resources to employees and affecting their levels of learning and vitality (e.g., Hildenbrand et al, ; Russo, Buonocore, Carmeli, & Guo, ).…”

“…First, the findings on the positive relationship between LMX and retail employees' thriving provide evidence that a trusting and respectful relationship with one's direct supervisor serves as the proximal relational context Moderating effect of team negative affective tone on the relationship between leader-member exchange (LMX) and thriving at work enabling the focal employee's thriving. Extant research has predominantly corroborated Spreitzer et al's (2005) conceptual model by demonstrating that influential workplace resources (such as work meaningfulness, knowledge, and coworker support; Niessen et al, 2012) and team contextual features (such as employee involvement climate, team learning climate, and network centrality; Cullen et al, 2018;Wallace et al, 2016;Zhu et al, 2019) foster employee thriving.…”

“…Heightened business and academic interest in developing human capital and building a sustainable workforce has put “how to enable employee thriving at work” a hot topic in the past decade (Cullen, Gerbasi, & Chrobot‐Mason, ; Paterson, Luthans, & Jeung, ; Prem, Ohly, Kubicek, & Korunka, ; Spreitzer, Porath, & Gibson, ; Zhu, Law, Sun, & Yang, ). Thriving at work refers to a positive psychological state in which employees experience both a sense of learning (i.e., acquiring and applying new knowledge and skills) and vitality (i.e., having energy and zest) (Spreitzer, Sutcliffe, Dutton, Sonenshein, & Grant, , p. 538).…”

Sixty years of discrimination and diversity research in human resource management: A review with suggestions for future research directions

“…It lags behind other dimensions of diversity (Colella, Hebl, & King, 2017), especially in top-tier journals (Dwertmann, 2016). Consistent with these trends, only a handful of recent studies in Human Resource Management investigate the inclusion of persons with disabilities (PWDs) with an emphasis on the unique burdens faced by PWDs (Baldridge & Swift, 2016;Lee, 2001), the psychological and social integration of PWDs (Kulkarni & Lengnick-Hall, 2011;Zhu et al, 2019), and their potential as a pool of untapped talent (Lengnick- Hall et al, 2008).…”

How and When Servant Leaders Enable Collective Thriving: The Role of Team–Member Exchange and Political Climate

“…positive meaning) in isolation (e.g. Niessen, Sonnentag and Sach, ; Prem et al ., ; Wallace et al ., ; Zhu et al ., ). We recommend that researchers take a fresh look at Spreitzer et al .’s () model by considering the potential interconnections between contexts and resources as well as revealing the ‘black box’ of how certain contexts or resources foster or inhibit thriving.…”