Dynamics of including people with disabilities: a qualitative study

The purpose of this paper is to report on the perception of people with disabilities with regard to the antecedents and consequences of disability inclusion at workplace. It aims at developing a theoretical model for disability inclusion at workplace in the context of a developing country like India. This research was done using 80 semi-structured interviews of people with disabilities who are working in formal sector. The findings show that the antecedents to disability inclusion are organisational factors such as equality and respect, policies and procedures, inter-personal factors such as attitude of co-workers and supervisors, and personal factors such as self-image. Job performance is found to have relationship with disability inclusion as consequence, and job performance, job satisfaction and organisational commitment are found to have relationship with disability inclusion as consequence with further association to intention to quit. In contrast to the past studies, this paper makes an attempt to dissect the phenomenon of inclusion after employment of people with disabilities.