Successful reentry into mainstream organizational culture : perceptions of physically disabled adults

Abstract

The objective of this exploratory study was to develop an understanding of how individuals with profound physical disabilities perceived the experience of attaining successful reintegration into a organizational work situation where disabled adults form a minority population. Based on in- depth interviews with seven people with profound physical impairments this study found that the barriers disabled individuals encountered were typically the result of a social environment which stereotyped them as damaged goods or second class citizens unable to make competent decisions or cost effectively perform most job duties. The support system which each of the participants identified as facilitating their respective successes had similar themes of rejecting the expected social norms and roles of people with physical impairments, and finding an organization which would allow jobs to be redesigned to fit the needs of the disabled. The process each of the participants described which led to their successful integration into their work situations was amazingly similar and could be categorized into four areas: (1) the individuals' background was fundamental to their subsequent successes because such elements as their work ethic and perceptions of family roles later served as a foundation for their perception of proper social roles, values, and norms; (2) after they experienced their injuries, each of the participants encountered barriers which attempted to confine them into the culture of the disabled, and an but one of the participants accepted the pervasive social image of disability for a period of time; (3) all of this study's participants cited some event which triggered their rejection of the social role of the disabled and replace its assumption of dependence with an imago based on their background and upbringing; and (4) by rejecting inclusion into the culture of the disabled, each of the participants found themselves in uncertain social roles and their subsequent successes depended upon developing a support system and the needed interpersonal and other skills to become accepted as members of the mainstream population.