The Identity Regulation of Disabled Employees: Unveiling the ‘varieties of ableism’ in employers’ socio-ideological control

Abstract

Conceptualizing organizational representations of disabled workers as a form of socio-ideological control, this study investigates the identity regulation of disabled employees. The comparative analysis of a bank, a labour market intermediary organization and a local public administration unveils distinct ways in which the able-bodied/disabled dichotomy is used to regulate disabled workers’ identity in function of organizational goals and the organization of work: by subsuming them into the ideal employee, by constructing them as the negation of the ideal employee, and by constructing the disabled and the able-bodied employee as distinct and mutually dependent ideal workers. These ‘varieties of ableism’ produce specific understandings of disabled employees that give them differential access to an ideal worker identity, and are resisted in multiple and surprising ways, including reclaiming the ideal worker’s identity and the promised rewards associated with it, and disclosing or hiding one’s embodiment and disability. The study advances the extant knowledge by showing how ableism variously functions as a principle of organizing shaping whom disabled workers are (not) allowed to be in specific organizational settings.