Employer Disability Confidence: Moving Towards a Theory-Based Change Logic

Joanne Xiaolei Qian-Khoo (), Erin Wilson and Kevin Murfitt
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Joanne Xiaolei Qian-Khoo: Melbourne Social Equity Institute, University of Melbourne, Melbourne 3010, Australia
Erin Wilson: Centre for Social Impact, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne 3122, Australia
Kevin Murfitt: School of Health & Social Development, Deakin University, Melbourne 3125, Australia

Disabilities, 2024, vol. 4, issue 4, 1-17

Abstract: Employer disability confidence is a concept being used increasingly in employment interventions and policies targeting the demand side of the labour market to support the employment of people with disability. However, the concept is not well-defined and lacks a theoretical basis, inhibiting its application to best effect. This study aims to develop a conceptual model of employer disability confidence to fill in the definitional and theoretical gap in the current practice and literature. The paper presents a synthesis of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and explores the literature that reports on use of TPB in disability employment contexts. We have applied the TPB to explain the concept of employer disability confidence. In the proposed framework, disability confidence is theorised to be the sum of the attitudes towards hiring people with disability, the perceived social expectations, and the perception of the employer and workplace of control over factors enabling and hindering employment of people with disability. Development of a theory-based and action-oriented framework for employer disability confidence could contribute to designing initiatives and interventions aimed at employers and workplaces to remove barriers to employment for people with disability, as well as understanding and assessing the effectiveness of implementation of such interventions.

Keywords: employer disability confidence; Theory of Planned Behaviour; disability employment; people with disability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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