A multilevel model of job inclusion of employees with disabilities: The role of organizational socialization tactics, coworkers social support, and an inclusive team context

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to examine the role of social context as a main mechanism to understand how organizational socialization tactics influence job inclusion of employees with disabilities (EWD). Specifically, we analyzed the influence of socialization that employees without disability received by the organization on two indicators of EWD's job inclusion, organizational learning, and desire to stay in the organization. First, we examined the mediator role of social support perceived by EWD in the aforementioned relationships. Second, we used a cross-level moderating approach to examine how an inclusive team context (affective climate toward disability and stigma shared by team members without disability) impacts on the relationship between EWD's perceptions of social support and both indicators of job inclusion. Our sample was composed by 258 employees included in 66 teams from 15 organizations. Each team included one worker with disability. Two sources of information were used: EWD to measure perceived social support and indicators of job inclusion, and coworkers to measure socialization tactics, team affective climate toward disability, and team stigma. We used multilevel modeling and cross-level moderation with MPLUS to test our hypotheses. Our results showed that EWD's perceptions of social support mediated the relationship between organizational socialization tactics and both indicators of EWD's job inclusion. Team affective climate toward disability and team stigma moderated the relationship between EWD's perceptions of social support and organizational learning. Thus, the social context showed potential improving EWD's job inclusion. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.