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Abstract
Companies have started intentionally hiring citizens with disabilities. Walgreens found that this employment strategy has dramatically altered their organizational culture and increased production levels. Using the case study approach, the researchers interviewed 31 team managers responsible for 650 employees of which 247 have a disability. Leaders reported having started as autocratic managers and transitioned to inclusive managers using "relationship-based leadership." Their inclusive management style is key to successful adaptive organizations and the focus of our findings.
Keywords: Employees with disabilities; inclusive manager; adaptive organization; qualitative research.
Modern societies of Europe and America have long discussed how to integrate citizens with disabilities into the workforce (Greve, 2009). These discussions have been important areas of debate and policy-making and have had significant impact on business through regulatory and voluntary measures (Melish, 2007). However, fully integrating workers with limited skills is still not a reality. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (2019) found:
In 2017, 18.7 percent of persons with a disability were employed. In contrast, the employment-population ratio for those without a disability was 65.7 percent. Among people between 16 to 64, the employment was only 29 percent for those with a disability versus 74 percent for persons without a disability. (para. 1)
Several companies are making significant progress in their social actions to learn more about this important topic, giving organizational development (OD) researchers opportunities to use scientific inquiry methods to learn how these companies create great teams and great organizations (Alper & Domnitz, 2017; Bruyere, 2016; Busch & Nagaishi, 2018; Jamieson & Marshak, 2018; McCary, 2005). These companies follow Busch and Nagaishi's (2018) model of widespread engagement of stakeholders in the process of inquiry while solving their business production requirements. They posit that when stakeholders (instead of the leaders) define the changes and when the leaders (rather than the staff) manage the process, the initiative almost always succeeds (Busch & Nagaishi, 2008). Shani and Coghlan (2018) describe future organizations that require certain traits in a complex environment. Companies that have successfully transitioned to inclusive management show these traits: agile, resilient, and innovative with an engaged workforce that interacts with dialogical inquiry (Shani & Coghlan, 2018). These traits are not characteristic of traditional management behaviors in organizations, of which many are guided by...