ILPC 2026

This UK based study is primarily concerned to explore how disabled people experience ableist recruitment and selection practices embedded within organisations.

This paper is informed by the extended social model of disability (Oliver, 1990; Thomas, 2004) which acknowledges that disabled people not only experience external oppression in form of social or material restrictions, but also internal oppression in form of socio-cultural processes that generate negative attitudes and sustain the prejudice and stigma attached to their individual potential (Thomas, 2004). This study engages with the concept of ‘the ideal worker’, generally a masculine notion (Foster and Wass, 2012), and how organisational practices are formed by ‘ableist’ norms and assumptions that view disabled people as less productive (Campbell, 2008). Conceptually, the notion of ableism builds on the social model of disability, due to the socially constructed nature of disability (Jammaers et al. 2016). This view links to the theory of social construction of gender, race and class in organisations (Acker, 1990; Cockburn, 1991), that has provided valuable comprehension into how work is structured to replicate and reproduce the hegemony power of elite White, able-bodied man (Harlan and Roberts, 1998).  In fact, work organisations are built on the principles of ‘ableness’, inevitably discounting individuals who are seen as not capable, and therefore, apparently incompetent. This study argues that Ackers (2006) analytical framework of inequality regimes, previously only been used to identify gender, race or class inequalities, should include disability inequality as a dimension to indicate that social barriers and disability discrimination are constructed by ableist recruitment processes.

The unique contribution provided by this paper comes from the way it attempts to synthesis ideas and different theoretical approaches from across disciplines including organisational, management and disability studies. This study has adopted a qualitative research approach involving semi-structured interviews with employers, disabled jobseeker and their employment advisors. The main intention of this paper is to indicate that employers should not use disability as implicit selection criteria during recruitment processes, because it inevitably ignores that a diverse group of people are able to do a job.

References:

Acker, J. 2006. Inequality regimes: gender, class, and race in organisations. Gender and Society. 20(4), pp.441-464.

Cockburn, C. ed. 1991. In the way of women: Men's resistance to sex equality in organizations. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press.

Foster, D. and Wass, V. 2012. Disability in the Labour Market: An Exploration of Concepts of the Ideal Worker and Organisational Fit that Disadvantage Employees with Impairments. Sociology. 47(7), pp.705-721.

Harlan, S. and Robert, P. 1998. The Social Construction of Disability in Organizations. Work and Occupations. 25(4), pp.397-435.

Jammaers, E., Zanoni, P., Hardonk, S. 2016. Constructing positive identities in ableist workplaces: Disabled employee's discursive practices engaging with the discourse of lower productivity. Human Relations. pp.1-22.

Thomas, C. 2004. How is disability understood? An examination of sociological approaches. Disability and Society. 19(6), pp.569-583.

Oliver, M. 1990. Chapter 2 Cultural Production of Impairment and Disability in the Politics of Disablement.  The Macmillan Press Ltd.