Employment of persons with disabilities as a corporate social responsibility initiative: Necessity and variants of implementation

Although companies recognize and promote the benefits of a diverse corporate culture, persons with disabilities (PWD), are more likely to be unemployed. Using secondary sources of information, this paper examines the need to address the employment of PWD as part of a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy, highlighting various implementation measures and variants. It shows that the employment of PWD can only be promoted by companies themselves. Measures at the national and international levels have so far shown little success. For a successful implementation, an obligation in the CSR strategy is not enough, measures need to be described explicitly. At its core, it is always necessary to remove physical and mental barriers in the company in order to enable the employment of PWD. The adaptation of CSR initiatives concerning the employment of PWD should be further investigated. The research should particularly focus on “best practice” approaches from business practice.