Ableism and organizational space: Exploring the role of material work environments in disadvantaging employees with disabilities

Abstract

According to the social model of disability, the material environment can play an important role in disabling individuals with impairments. As the organizational literature on disability has failed to offer an in-depth analysis of the disabling effects of organizational spaces and the organizational literature on space has ignored the issue of disability, this article aims to answer the following question: how can organizational spaces contribute to disadvantaging employees with disabilities? Drawing on interviews with 66 employees with an impairment, this article shows how organizational spaces can contribute to disadvantaging individuals with disabilities by disabling their productivity, inclusion and well-being. In doing so, this article makes three contributions to the organizational literature. First, it shows how spaces contribute to materially and symbolically disabling individuals with impairments. Second, by showing how these processes can work independently, this article highlights that reasonable accommodations might not be sufficient to fundamentally challenge ableism, and can even reproduce it. Third, we broaden debates on organizational efforts to address the disadvantaged position of individuals with disabilities by proposing policy and spatial interventions aimed at challenging ableist norms.