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Management

“Chapter 12: Breaking Barriers by Patterning Employment Success”

The National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), one of nine colleges at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT, United States), is the first and largest technological college in the world for students who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) with cutting edge programs aimed at increasing the employability of DHH persons, and at enhancing readiness of employers to utilize this talent. In 1968, with a pilot group of 70 deaf students at RIT, NTID’s ‘grand experiment’ was the first attempt within the United States to bring large numbers of deaf students into a hearing college environment, to help them earn college degrees, gain successful employment, and become productive community members (Lang and Connor, 2001). As of 2017, NTID boasts an alumni body of more than 8,000 and an active enrollment of 1,413 students across NTID’s and RIT’s Associate, Bachelors, and Graduate programs (integrated with RIT). NTID students have a higher persistence and graduation rate as compared with the national rates for all students, hearing and otherwise, at two-year and four-year colleges (NTID Annual Report, 2015). NTID boasts an employment rate of 94 per cent among its graduates and Associate degree graduates earn 95 per cent more than DHH graduates from other post-secondary institutions, while Bachelor's degree graduates earn 178 per cent more when compared similarly (NTID by the Numbers, 2017). Overall, NTID has become an international model for educating and preparing DHH students for technology-related careers.
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Academic Journal
Management

“Childhood-onset disability, strong ties and employment quality”

Purpose

Persons with childhood-onset disabilities are among the most marginalized populations, often unemployed or underemployment in jobs providing neither adequate hours for financial self-sufficiency nor fulfillment through skill-utilization. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which social capital in the form of strong ties with family and friends is associated with enhanced employment outcomes for persons with childhood-onset disabilities.
Design/methodology/approach

Questioning the current theoretical consensus that strong social ties are unimportant to employment quality, the authors draw on disability research and opportunity, motivation and ability social capital theory to propose a model of the impact of strong ties with family and friends on paid-work-hours and skill-utilization as well as the potential moderating role of gender and disability severity. The authors then test this model using data from 1,380 people with childhood-onset disabilities and OLS regression analysis.
Findings

As theorized, family-of-origin-size is positively associated with hours worked. Family-of-origin-size is also associated with having more close friends and children. These strong ties, in turn, are positively associated with hours worked. The impact of having more children on hours worked and skill-utilization, however, is positive for men but non-significant for women.
Originality/value

This study breaks new ground by focusing on the association between strong ties with family and friends and employment quality for people with childhood-onset disabilities – a marginalized and understudied group. Findings further indicate the particular vulnerability of women with disabilities.
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Academic Journal
Management

“Conceptualizing disability accommodation device acceptance by workgroups through a sociomaterial lens”

Purpose. Persons with disabilities (PWD) are among the largest and most diverse minority groups and among the most disadvantaged in terms of employment. Entrepreneurial pursuit is often advocated as a path toward employment, inclusion, and equality, yet few studies have investigated earning variation among PWD.

Design/methodology/approach. The authors draw on social cognitive career theory (SCCT), and the disability employment and entrepreneurship literature to develop hypotheses about who among PWD are likely to earn more (less) from entrepreneurial pursuits. The authors then conduct analyses on the nationally representative sample of the Canadian Survey on Disability (CSD) by including all PWD engaged in entrepreneurial pursuit, and matching each to an organizationally employed counterpart of the same gender and race and of similar age and disability severity (n ≈ 810).

Findings. Entrepreneurial pursuit has a stronger negative association with the earnings of PWD who experience earlier disability onset ages, those who report more unmet accommodation needs, and those who are female.

Originality/value. First, this study applies SCCT to help bridge the literature on organizational employment barriers for PWD and entrepreneurs with disabilities. Second, we call into question the logic of neoliberalism about entrepreneurship by showing that barriers to organizational employment impact entrepreneurial pursuit decisions and thereby earnings. Third, we extend the understanding of entrepreneurial earnings among PWD by examining understudied disability attributes and demographic attributes. Lastly, this study is among the first to use a matched sample to empirically test the impact of entrepreneurial pursuit on the earnings of PWD.

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