Associate Professor Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States
Abstract: Disability is a wide-ranging term for impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions, including the negative aspects of the interaction between people with a health condition and their contextual and environmental factors (World Health Organization, 2011). Approximately 1.3 billion people experience significant disability, which represents 16% of the world’s population, or 1 in 6 of us. (World Health Organization, 2023). As there are changes in societal perceptions and legislative efforts on people with disabilities (PD) as well as disability prevalence in workforce, workforce participation of PD and their employment are increasing (Schloemer-Jarvis et al., 2022).
Considerable attention has been paid to employees with disability and related issues in human resource (HR) fields (Baldridge & Kulkarni, 2017; Beatty et al., 2019; Schloemer-Jarvis et al., 2022). For instance, human resource development (HRD) scholars have discussed ableism in organizations and employees with visual impairment and autism in relation to their career development and workplace success (Johnson et al., 2020; Kwon, 2021; Kwon & An, 2022). Although a small number of scholars have reviewed disability research trends and types (e.g., Procknow & Rocco, 2016), there is little research on conducing comprehensive review to identify disability research topics in relation to HR areas (e.g., recruiting/selection, learning/development, and employee relations) and disability types (e.g., mental, physical, and sensory). More research is needed to examine which disability topics are discussed in HR areas and how much disability types are considered in this discussion for better understanding of disability experiences and diverse disability groups in organizational contexts.
Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify disability topics in HR research and suggest future research agenda in HRD. The research question guiding this study is: What disability-related research topics have been discussed in the field of HR? To address this research question, we conducted a comprehensive review of HR-related literature on PD. Through this review, we identified the types of disability studied in HR, pinpointed HR areas in which PD were studied, and uncovered research gaps for future studies.
We searched Web of Science for articles on PD in HR using keywords ((disab* OR impair* OR disorder* OR ableis* OR disableis*) AND (human resource* OR HR OR HRM OR HRD OR management OR work*)), yielding an initial 355,337 articles. After filtering out irrelevant ones (e.g., non-English, non-SSCI, non-research, and non-HR related articles), we selected articles that focused on PD as a main topic within workplace settings, resulting in 213 articles. We reviewed these articles' abstracts, coding them by authors, publication year, journal title, types of disabilities, and HR areas studied.
Table 1 shows the types of disabilities examined in HR. Over half the articles explored PD broadly rather than focusing on specific types of disabilities. We identified 33 articles focusing on physical disabilities including sensory disabilities, 27 on psychiatric and mental disabilities, and 20 on cognitive disabilities. Additionally, we found 9 articles focusing on complex disabilities with multiple impairments. Since successful job performance often hinges on interactions with others (e.g., coworkers, supervisors, customers) in many jobs, there is a need for research on this type of disability. We will provide implications for social and interpersonal disabilities both for research and practice, particularly from an HRD perspective.
Additionally, we identified HR areas in which PD were explored and divided them into 12 categories: 1) recruitment and selection; 2) placement; 3) learning and development; 4) performance management and appraisal; 5) compensation and benefits; 6) safety, health, and security; 7) worker mobility, including career development; 8) employee and labor relations; 9) organizational ethics, corporate social responsibility, social legitimacy, and compliance; 10) workforce planning; 11) organization development; and 12) others. Further analysis and findings will be provided in the poster presentation.
