Moral Elevation & Prosocial Benefits in Workplace Disability Inclusion Interventions

Authors

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Initiatives involving the inclusion of Individuals with Disabilities (IWD) in workplace settings have received attention as a way to enhance the welfare of IWD and to provide benefits to a business itself. In addition to this, another potential advantage of inclusion programs is their potential to improve the attitudes of coworkers who have contact with IWD.

OBJECTIVE: We examined how an IWD inclusion initiative influenced attitudes of other employees in distribution centers for a national retailer. We predicted that increased workplace contact with IWD would lead to more favorable attitudes toward IWD in general.

METHODS: Participants completed a series of questions regarding their attitudes toward IWD and how their contact with IWD affected their attitudes toward IWD.

RESULTS: We found that increased contact with IWD, both through a larger percentage of IWD in a worker’s team and more contact during breaks, was associated with more favorable attitudes toward IWD in the workplace.

CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that increased contact from IWD inclusion can have beneficial effects on coworkers’ attitudes toward IWD, providing evidence for prosocial benefits of IWD inclusion initiatives.

Author Biography

Jeffrey Moore, Anderson University

Jeffrey Moore serves as a full-time professor of management and disability intelligence researcher at Anderson University (South Carolina).  He was raised in France and received his PhD from the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis' business school Institut d’Administration des Entreprises (IAE).   His research focus is on complexity leadership and hiring people with disabilities. 

Leading the Anderson University research team, they work with Walgreens and Sephora to study their disability employment practices and impact on team members.  They authored book chapters on culture transformation through employing people with disabilities, creating transparent organizational cultures, and moral development.  They have published in AMLE (Academy of Management Learning & Education), JMD (Journal of Management Development) and ODJ (Organizational Development Journal). They won the only best paper award at the 2019 International Dutch Human Resource Management Network.  In 2015 they won the AOM Management Consulting 2015 Award: Outstanding Scholar-Practitioner Collaboration. 

Over the past 20 years they have worked with manufacturing companies on organizational transformation through leadership development and with distribution centers on leveraging their inclusive teams.  They are the only researchers working with Bed Bath & Beyond, Sephora and Walgreens to study their inclusive teams.    SDG

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Published

2024-01-01

How to Cite

Moore, J., Franklin, R., & Halfacre, J. J. (2024). Moral Elevation & Prosocial Benefits in Workplace Disability Inclusion Interventions. Journal of Research for International Educators, 3(1). Retrieved from https://jorie.org/index.php/journal/article/view/25

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 1 (2024): Global Revisioning: reimagining, restructuring & reaching out

Section

Conference Presentation

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