This article aims to explore the conditions of people with disability (PwD) integration through the analysis of best practices of a successful Indian company that has adopted a singular PwD involvement policy since it was started. Our research question can be stated as follows: ‘What enablers or factors helped Vindhya in the successful inclusion of PwDs and simultaneously achieve commercial success?’ An exploratory study consisting of data triangulation of secondary data and in-depth interviews was done to get a detailed and (...) deep understanding of the company’s successful inclusion of disabled employees. We found that a transformational leadership style prevents prejudice and expands the horizon of PwD’s capability. This is concretely implemented through a set of organizational practices involving communication, ambience, relationships, empathy, ethics and other aspects that are highlighted in this article. We briefly call the overall approach of the company ‘CARE’ (Communication, Ambience, Respect/Relatedness with employees/Recruitment, Ethics/Empathy/Enthusiasm/Engagement). The adoption of CARE-organizational practices at the studied company increased the capability set of PwDs, enhanced organizational citizenship behaviour and, as a whole, improved the organizational performance. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Amartya Sen’s capability approach is often used in disability research as a normative framework for describing and evaluating the well-being of people with disabilities. Nevertheless, recently, the possibility of going beyond description to the use of the capability approach as an explanatory tool has been raised. However, to allow the use of the capability approach in this way requires grounding it in an appropriate research paradigm. In this paper, critical realism is adopted for this purpose. It is argued that (...) critical realism can provide the ontology needed to justify finding explanations for the way that people with disabilities achieve their valued capabilities. The assumption here is that there are real, emergent structures and mechanisms that underlie empirical capabilities; and that these structures and mechanisms are related to people’s agency, as described by critical realism’s conception of the relationship between structure and agency. (shrink)

Developing an instrument with the capability approach can be challenging, since the capability concept of Sen is ambiguous concerning the burdens that people experience whilst achieving their capabilities. A solution is to develop instruments with a comprehensive concept of capability, such as the concept of ‘option-freedom’. This study aims to develop a theoretical framework for instrument development with the concept of option-freedom. A best-fit framework synthesis was conducted with seven qualitative papers by one researcher. Two researchers supported the synthesis by (...) discussing interim results during the synthesis. A priori concepts of option-freedom were used to deductively code against. Themes and subthemes were developed inductively when data did not match a priori themes. Seven paper were identified that fulfilled the eligibility criteria. Four themes emerged from the synthesis. (1) Option Wellbeing represents a range of options that need to be satisfied for individuals to experience wellbeing. (2) Self-Realization represents that there are experiences in an individual’s life that have value beyond realizing options. (3) Perceived Access to Options represents the perceived ability of individuals to realize freedoms. (4) Perceived Control represents the experience of having control. Developing an instrument with the proposed framework has two benefits. First, it acknowledges the importance of assessing impediments in realizing capabilities for wellbeing assessment. Secondly, the themes form a broad informational base by including themes related to subjective wellbeing. Future research should study the feasibility of implementing the framework for instrument development. (shrink)