Posted: January 31st, 2023

Business & Finance

Case Studies: Using concepts from the chapter readings students will provide their own in depth analysis of each assigned case and answer all questions at the end of each case study. Each analysis should include an in-text citation and end of paper reference (from the chapter with a page number) that relates to the case study. In addition, an Assignment Cover Sheet is required with each analysis (see Appendix).
Case studies are listed in the course syllabus
Case 1: In the Eye of the Perfect Stormpg262-270 – Answer questions 1-4pg270.
Text book name is Canas, K. A. &Sondak, H. Opportunities and Challenges of Workplace Diversity (3rd Edition). Pearson.
Please answer the four discussion questions below. Please number your answers individually. APA 2 page is required.
Case Study: In the Eye of the Perfect Storm: Creating Accessibility—IBM, GM, and CISCO
A “Critical Disadvantage”
Americans with disabilities constitute an estimated 49 million people, or 20 percent of the population. In other words, one in every five people has a disability, and as some experts estimate, there is an 80 percent chance that an average person will experience some kind of disability in the course of his or her lifetime. Even with the likelihood that so many people will be in this group, Americans with disabilities are, according to the 2004 National Organization on Disability/Harris Survey, still at a “critical disadvantage” when compared with nondisabled Americans.1 The following statistics reflect this disadvantage:
• Thirty-five percent of people with disabilities report being employed full or part time, compared with 78 percent of those who do not have disabilities.
• People with disabilities are three times as likely to live in poverty with annual household incomes below $15,000 (26 percent versus 9 percent).
• People with disabilities remain twice as likely to drop out of high school compared with people without disabilities (21 percent versus 10 percent).
• People with disabilities are twice as likely to have inadequate transportation (31 percent versus 13 percent), and a much higher percentage go without needed health care (18 percent versus 7 percent).
• People with disabilities are less likely to socialize, eat out, or attend religious services than their nondisabled counterparts.
• Life satisfaction for people with disabilities trails, with only 34 percent saying they are very satisfied compared with 61 percent of those without disabilities.
• People with disabilities are much more worried about their future health and well-being. Half are worried about not being able to care for themselves or being a burden to their families, compared with a quarter of other Americans.2
Alan A. Reich, former National Organization on Disability (NOD) president, expresses his concern about these findings: “Progress is too slow” and the “gaps are still too large.” These statistics are important, Reich explains, because “everyone knows people with disabilities; and anyone can acquire a disability at any time. Everyone has a stake in these findings.”3
Also contributing to this critical disadvantage is that emergency planning is insufficient for people with disabilities. According to a recent nationwide Harris Interactive survey of emergency managers in states and cities throughout the nation, 69 percent of emergency managers said that they had incorporated the needs of people with disabilities into their emergency plans. Although this percentage may seem adequate, other findings proved more troublesome: Only 54 percent of the emergency managers had plans for dealing with schools for students with disabilities; 59 percent said they did not have plans for pediatric populations with disabilities; and 76 percent said that they did not have a paid expert to deal with emergency preparedness for people with disabilities.4
The critical disadvantage is thus based on a number of elements: employment, transportation, health insurance, concerns about the future, general life satisfaction, and emergency planning. When people with disabilities constitute such a high percentage and when other minority groups are making significant strides toward equality, why are people with disabilities at such a critical disadvantage? Three systems of discrimination for people with disabilities come together to create a perfect storm of unemployment. The strength of the perfect storm creates a situation in which people with disabilities are, in many instances, at a disadvantage when compared with people without disabilities.
The Perfect Storm
The first of three interconnected systems of discrimination that create the perfect storm is the inadequate social structure for people with disabilities; the second is a set of pervasive cultural assumptions about hiring people with disabilities; and the third is a two-sided disincentive for both employee and employer. The power of this triple threat and the damage it leaves behind are reflected in the many lives that are diminished by it.
Inadequate Social Structure
Activism on behalf of the disabled is relatively new, and this movement’s lack of historical roots contributes to its relatively weak institutional structure. Women and African Americans, by contrast, have developed protective social structures formalized by laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, affirmative action, and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. Further, organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Organization for Women (NOW) represent legitimate and powerful vehicles for social change.
People with disabilities are just beginning to experience some workplace equality since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, and educational equality with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997 (IDEA). Without long-standing laws and experienced organizations to protect the rights of people with disabilities, the disability rights movement remains less influential than other civil rights efforts, thus making the crusade for social justice a more difficult process.
Contributing to the challenge of creating a strong social structure for people with disabilities is the extensive diversity represented among members of the disabled community. The life experiences of people with spinal cord injuries or muscular dystrophy, for example, are different from those of people with learning disabilities or who are HIV-positive. Furthermore, people who are deaf, a condition that is classified by the ADA as a disability, often do not consider themselves to be disabled.
Further complicating the situation is the confusion about what conditions are considered disabilities protected by the ADA. The ADA makes it clear that when determining whether or not a specific condition is a disability, the question is always the same: Does the diagnosable condition substantially limit one or more major life activities (i.e., walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning, sitting, standing, etc.)? Even with this legal standard in place, there is still debate surrounding the ADA: Do people with cancer or severe diabetes qualify under the ADA? At what point during an individual’s condition do people who are addicted to alcohol or drugs, severely depressed, or HIV-positive qualify under the ADA?
Understanding and managing these issues may help people with disabilities strengthen their movement’s social and institutional structure and, as a result, gain more access to and influence within the public arena. Because the disability rights movement represents a youthful, fluid, and diverse effort, gaining a legitimate voice and communicating a unified message will, of course, be difficult. Compounding the inadequate social structure for people with disabilities is a cultural mythology based on a trio of damaging assumptions about the disabled.
Cultural Assumptions about Hiring People with Disabilities
Stereotypes, attitudes that make assumptions about whole groups of people, often distort reality and disempower individuals in their daily lives. American culture and attitudes make assumptions that lead managers not to hire people with disabilities. Although each of the following assumptions—people with disabilities are unreliable, expensive, and likely to sue their company—is indeed damaging on its own, together the assumptions constitute a pervasive cultural mythology that erects barriers to employment that are likely to harm both people with disabilities and their potential employers.
Assumption 1: People with Disabilities are Unreliable Unsurprisingly, virtually all people with disabilities want to live as fulfilling a life as possible; for them, as for most people, a positive experience in the workplace typically translates to a more optimistic outlook on life. As Dr. Norma Carr-Ruffino, a leading expert in workplace diversity, explains: Most people with disabilities “want to work, regardless of the extent of their impairment, and see work as a major route to self-fulfillment. They want to find work that draws on their skills and talents and helps them live a more abundant life.”5 Challenging the perception that employees with disabilities are frequently sick is the fact that people who are disabled tend to have better-than-average attendance and turnover records.6 Fraser Nelson, executive director of the Disability Law Center of Salt Lake City, reminds us that “being disabled is not an illness, it is a condition; understanding this distinction is important to discrediting the assumption that being disabled translates to taking more sick days.”7
Workers with disabilities are often cast—albeit incorrectly—as less productive than their coworkers without disabilities. According to studies, employers have not only expressed more favorable attitudes toward employing persons with severe disabilities in the workplace but also viewed workers with severe disabilities as dependable, productive workers who can interact socially and foster positive attitudes on the part of their coworkers.8 In addition, 50 percent of managers rate their employees with disabilities higher than those who are not disabled on the following dimensions: willingness to work hard, reliability, punctuality, and attendance.9 Although the reality is that workers with disabilities are just as dependable as their coworkers, the stereotype of being unreliable is insidious and persists deep within American attitudes. This stereotype makes it easy for managers to make the next assumption—that workers with disabilities are costly—without carefully evaluating the reality.
Assumption 2: Accommodating People with Disabilities in the Workplace Is Costly Evaluating whether accommodating people with disabilities is expensive is difficult and complex. There is some evidence that accommodating those with disabilities has made them more expensive to hire, but the reliability of the data showing this trend is disputed. Moreover, there is also evidence that suggests that hiring people with disabilities not only costs relatively little but can be a savvy business decision.
According to the National Organization on Disability, a study that surveyed companies employing people with disabilities found that only 24 percent reported that any accommodations were needed. In addition, among companies that did indeed provide accommodations, “for 34 percent of businesses the average cost was $100 or less, and for 71 percent of businesses it was $500 or less. Forty-six percent of accommodations were simple things like providing a ramp or adapting a desk to fit a wheelchair.” In a separate survey of employers who used the U.S. Department of Labor’s Job Accommodation Network, 71 percent reported that “the cost of accommodation was $500 or less on average.” This study also reflected the fact that “[a] dollar spent on accommodations leads to an estimated $35 dollars in benefits.”10
Echoing these results is evidence reported by National Public Radio science correspondent Joseph Shapiro which indicated that 51 percent of all accommodations cost nothing; and for the other 49 percent, the average cost of an accommodation was $300. Interestingly, the study also highlighted the fact that less than 1 percent of accommodations cost $5,000 or more.11 To help buttress substantial costs that organizations may have to absorb, tax incentives are often available.
However, some researchers argue that employment rates among people with disabilities declined after the passage of the ADA, despite its prohibitions against discrimination in hiring, suggesting that employers are reluctant to spend even the relatively small amounts required to accommodate these potential workers.12 Whether this decline is real or merely apparent is a controversial issue and depends on how researchers define such complicated concepts as “disability” and “employment” and how they account for the effects of disability insurance and Social Security. In any case, it may be that because many accommodations are fixed costs, the expenses associated with accommodating disabled people will decline in years to come. For example, constructing a ramp for the use of its first employee who uses a wheelchair is a cost that a firm will not have to duplicate for subsequent hires.
In light of the ambiguity about whether accommodating disabled employees is in fact costly, it is premature to assume that this is true. The negative impact of this assumption is further compounded by another, that employees with disabilities are likely to sue their employer.
Assumption 3: People with Disabilities are Likely to Sue Their Employer When employers believe that they may be sued if they decide to fire an employee with a disability, it is not surprising that qualified, disabled job candidates do not get hired. The employers’ rationale is simple: Why take the unnecessary risk of being sued? But this perceived risk begs the question whether there is in fact excessive litigation against companies for discriminating against employees with disabilities.
According to DiversityInc.com, over the past decade, employees and potential employees have “brought charges against companies citing discrimination based on disabilities associated with conditions ranging from alcoholism and epilepsy to multiple sclerosis and the HIV virus.”13 More specifically, more than $436 million has been paid in settlements to more than 31,000 people, and another $28.1 million was paid in court-ordered fines through 491 ADA cases brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) from 1993 through 2002.14 What are the issues underlying this litigation, and is the fear of being sued a legitimate concern for employers?
According to former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the high court’s heavy load of disability-rights cases is the result of holes in the ADA. Although the original goal of the ADA was to help introduce qualified people with disabilities into the workplace, it is so complex and ambiguous that it creates uncertainty among employers about how to comply with a law with continually changing interpretation and enforcement. O’Connor explains that the ADA was written and passed hurriedly by Congress: “It’s an example of what happens when . . . the sponsors are so eager to get something passed that what passes hasn’t been as carefully written as a group of law professors might put together.” And as a result, “it leaves lots of ambiguities and gaps and things for courts to figure out.”15
Lawsuits brought by employees against their employers are indeed expensive for firms, but the portion of these costs attributable to the ADA is very difficult to determine. It is possible that fear of being sued for wrongful termination leads to decreased hiring of people with disabilities.16 Research suggests, however, that even if there has been a decline in employment rates of people with disabilities since the passage of the ADA, its likely explanation is not primarily fear of litigation but rather the costs of accommodation.17
It is important for employers to understand that although the ADA protects people with disabilities from workplace discrimination, it also protects the employer who hires people with disabilities. First, employers do not have to hire individuals with disabilities who are not qualified for the job, nor do they have to give preference to persons with disabilities over other applicants. Second, employers are not required to make accommodations that would cause them undue hardship, in other words, accommodations that are excessively expensive or interfere with a business imperative. Third, if a person does not identify himself or herself as having a disability, employers generally do not have to make any accommodation unless the disability is obvious. Finally, the ADA provides some subsidies for hiring disabled workers.
Disincentives
The third source of discrimination is the complexity of the American health care and insurance systems as they relate to people with disabilities. Why would a firm seek an employee whose participation in its health insurance plan will raise its costs? Conversely, why would a person with a disability assume a position in a company that may not provide affordable or adequate health insurance, or risk losing disability benefits because the salary surpasses the amount sanctioned by the federal government?
Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) are the two options through which people with disabilities may obtain public insurance. People with general disabilities who make more than $830 per month, or $1,380 per month if they are blind, are not eligible for these public programs.18 Employer-provided insurance is an alternative to SSDI and SSI, so in deciding whether to be employed a person with disabilities must consider the costs of health care and insurance against the benefits of working.
Furthermore, rising health care costs make it especially expensive for employers to employ people with disabilities. To contain their costs, most companies have passed on an increasing share of the costs for health insurance to employees and have selected plans with many use restrictions.19 This situation has thus created a two-sided disincentive: First, employers may be more reluctant to hire people with high-cost medical conditions; and second, people with disabilities may not be as interested in entering the workforce if they risk losing their benefits without an adequate substitute provided by their employers.
According to Diane D. Russell, former director of the Governor’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities in the state of Utah, deciding how to navigate these economic issues “can become so complicated that there are programs specifically for people who are receiving Social Security Disability Benefits and would like information on how work may affect their benefits.”20 She explains that in such a program, a benefits planner will meet people with disabilities and review their situations to help determine if and how they can go to work and not lose benefits, particularly health benefits.
Shelter From The Perfect Storm: Government Efforts
The perfect storm has created a situation in which people with disabilities who are looking to attain meaningful employment face a unique problem. To help mitigate the effects of this situation, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services established in 2002 the Office of Disabilities. This agency serves as the focal point within the department for implementation and coordination of federal policies and programs and facilitates the interaction of the federal and state governments with community resources and private sector partners including business and nonprofit organizations.21 The agency also plans and carries out efforts to remove barriers faced by those with disabilities, and to increase the visibility of those barriers. In addition, every state and the District of Columbia have a department that provides services to people with disabilities, including coordination of employment services. Unfortunately, state programs are often targeted for budget cuts in bad economic times, and with recently rising unemployment and escalating state budget crises, many of these agencies have been hard hit.
Shelter From The Perfect Storm: Nonprofit Efforts
Many nonprofit organizations are dedicated to the protection and advocacy of the rights of people with disabilities. For example, the National Disability Right Network provides free legal services to people with disabilities to fight violations of their civil rights in terms of accessibility, employment, schooling, housing, and similar issues.22 Similarly, the NOD works to expand opportunities for people with disabilities so that they can fully contribute to society in all aspects of life.23 Among its other activities, the NOD reports annually on the status of the employment opportunities for people with disabilities, emergency preparedness efforts, and changes in the accessibility of American communities and facilities for those with disabilities.
In addition, many nonprofit organizations provide education, training, and employment placement services to people with disabilities. For example, Start on Success (SOS), a program of the NOD, offers job training and internships.24The purpose of SOS is to prepare young people with disabilities, especially those from low-income urban families, for employment before they leave high school.
Some universities assist both employers and potential employees to understand better the issues of workplace accessibility for people with disabilities. For example, Virginia Commonwealth University’s Rehabilitation Research and Training Center studies how individuals with disabilities can be supported at work and advance their careers.25Similarly, the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University houses the Employment and Disability Institute, which enhances the employment opportunities for people with disabilities through research, publications, training, and technical assistance.26 The Disability Research Institute of the University of Illinois provides resources for research on important issues of disability employment including the economics of disability, the determination of disability, transitioning people with disabilities to enter the workforce, and helping people who have developed a disability to return to work.27
Shelter From The Perfect Storm: Business Efforts
Many business organizations embrace accessibility. Three examples of companies with unusually innovative, sustained, and impressive models of recruiting, hiring, and retaining employees with disabilities are International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), General Motors (GM), and Cisco Systems.
IBM
IBM’s history of employing people with disabilities dates to 1914, when IBM hired its first employee with a disability, 76 years before the ADA was enacted.28 At IBM today, people with disabilities make up approximately 2 to 3 percent of the company’s staff of more than 355,000. Nearly half of these employees with disabilities are working in technology positions such as electrical engineer, IT architect, or software programmer.29
Because IBM’s model of accessibility is uniquely comprehensive, it could become a model for other companies to emulate. Indeed, IBM is DiversityInc’s top-rated company for people with disabilities because of its inclusive culture, its workplace that accommodates people’s needs, and its marketing that values people with disabilities as customers.30 IBM’s progressive philosophy on accessibility is to create and maintain the following:
a holistic, end-to-end approach to accessibility. Accessibility . . . means going beyond product compliance with regulations to include a better user experience and the vision to ultimately improve a person’s total quality of life. We see this as a global journey to gain business advantage. A journey that begins with accessible technology infrastructure and ends with business transformation.31
On a philosophical level, IBM’s mission is poignant. And when the mission is translated to a practical level—specifically in terms of internships, recruitment, accommodations, and the IBM Accessibility Center—we see that IBM is indeed enacting its vision.
An IBM internship program called Entry Point provides an opportunity for students with disabilities to get on-the-job experience in their majors and learn about the myriad of careers IBM offers nationwide. Project View and Project Able are two recruiting programs that reach outstanding college candidates of diverse backgrounds including people with disabilities. As a direct result of Project Able, which was launched in 1999, 84 college students and 139 professionals with disabilities have been hired at IBM.32
Internally, IBM provides a range of accommodations and assistive devices for employees who have disabilities. IBM has accomplished the following:
• Constructed ramps, power doors, parking facilities, and other accommodations to provide access for people with impaired mobility
• Captioned videotapes and provided sign language interpreters and note takers for classes and meetings for employees who are deaf or hard of hearing
• Recorded company publications on audiocassettes for employees and retirees who are visually impaired
• Provided adaptive services or modifications to enable people with disabilities to use work-related equipment (e.g., screen readers and display-screen magnifiers; keyboard guards and special switches; real-time captioning of meetings and Webcasts; telecommunications devices and telephone amplifiers);
• Provided travel assistance for employees with mobility impairments33
In addition to assisting their employees, five years ago IBM merged existing accessibility groups to form a worldwide Accessibility Center with locations in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Australia. The Center “fosters product accessibility, works toward the harmonization of worldwide standards, applies research technologies to solve problems experienced by people with disabilities, creates industry-focused solutions, and generates accessibility awareness.”34
IBM’s Director of Diversity Communications Jim Sinocchi states: “We consider diversity strategic to our organization. We don’t hire people who are disabled just because it’s a nice thing to do. We do it because it’s the right thing to do from a business standpoint.”35 Sinocchi, who broke his neck while surfing on a vacation 20 years ago, speaks freely about his experiences as a paraplegic, “The problem is that people equate disability with stupidity. When I go out to dinner, the waiter won’t ask me what I want. He’ll ask the people I’m with what I want to have. This pervasive attitude must be broken for disabled workers to make a full contribution to society.”36 With its serious commitment to accessibility, IBM works daily to break this prejudice.
General Motors
Like IBM, GM understands the value of hiring people with disabilities. The GMability philosophy maintains the following:
GM has long been committed throughout its global operations to hiring people with varied backgrounds. This hiring practice is the right thing to do, but just as important, it creates a competitive advantage for GM. Having a workforce that reflects the marketplace helps GM more effectively reach customers and provide products and services they want.37
Gary Talbot, a member of the U.S. Access Board, works as a vehicle systems engineer at the GM headquarters. According to Talbot, “With GM, if they decide that they want you as an employee, there isn’t anything they won’t do to help you succeed.”38 Reflecting its respect for its employees and their value to the company, GM responds expeditiously to requests and concerns and goes well beyond what is legally required or typically provided. For example, when Talbot suggested that the company replace the newly installed refrigerators in the 38 break rooms with side-by-side models so employees using wheelchairs could reach their food, GM quickly made the necessary improvements. In a second example, when Talbot’s office did not fit his wheelchair, the company remodeled it twice before they reached the correct configuration.39
One of GM’s strengths has been its open communication between employer and employee. As Talbot explains: “Workplaces need to provide cultures in which employees feel they can be honest about their needs.”40
Many of the improvements for GM employees with disabilities came through suggestions from the company’s Affinity Group for People with Disabilities. This Affinity Group—which consist of GM employees and retirees who meet once a month to discuss accessibility issues in the workplace—acts as a link between diverse employee groups and management and is formed around “employee initiatives” and is “employee-driven.” The primary goal of these groups is “to create professional development opportunities for their members and to serve as an information resource to the Corporation on issues that affect that constituency.”41
In addition, GM is reinforcing its commitment to provide transportation solutions for people with disabilities. GM’s Sit-N-Lift seat—a fully motorized, rotating lift-and-lower passenger seat that makes it easier for people with disabilities to enter and exit the vehicle—has been available on Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, and Saturn models.42 GM offers reimbursements to customers with disabilities for costs of installing adaptive equipment. Plus, its Web site offers people with disabilities links to helpful services including evaluators who can help customers decide what adaptive modifications they need, vendors for the necessary equipment, and the licensing requirements of its state DMVs.43
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems provides networking equipment for the Internet. Although founded as recently as 1984, its sales are now over $40 billion per year.44 Cisco not only provides the means for networking, but it offers itself as an example to its customers so that they can learn from Cisco’s own experiences as a company that does business over extensive networks.45 Of particular relevance to people with disabilities is Cisco’s encouragement of its employees to create innovative home networks so that they themselves can transform how they and their families live, work, and play, thus providing templates that others can use for their own telecommuting.
Cisco launched an effort in 2004 to make its facilities, products, documentation, and Web sites fully accessible to both employees and users with disabilities.46 To accomplish this goal Cisco developed a complex initiative that included the creation of an accessibility testing and evaluation lab, the integration of accessibility teams into product development engineering, online accessibility training, and the incorporation of accessibility lessons into all business units. One result of this effort was that Cisco was awarded the 2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers Helen Keller award by the American Foundation for the Blind for making its products accessible to those with vision loss.47 Not only does Cisco provide accessibility for its products, its products help make its customers more accessible as well.48
In addition, Cisco prides itself on providing an accessible environment for all its employees. In addition to facilitating telecommuting, Cisco ensures that the architecture of and equipment in its facilities meet the needs of its employees from a variety of dimensions of accessibility and help them succeed at work in an environment that expects high levels of performance. In the words of Luís Lima, a Cisco employee with disabilities, Cisco “gives people the resources they need to do their jobs and drive their careers without pampering them.”49 Like IBM and GM, Cisco created an advisory group/support network of and for people with disabilities, the Cisco Disability Awareness Network. Finally, Cisco sponsors workshops on how employees can help each other feel more included.50
As illustrated here, some companies embrace accessibility in the workplace to bring qualified, motivated employees with disabilities into the workplace and to create innovative models of recruiting and retaining employees with disabilities. These companies demonstrate that it is possible to provide people with disabilities the opportunity not only to navigate the perfect storm but to conquer it by belonging to an organization that creates real opportunities and an inclusive environment.
Discussion Questions
1. 1. According to the NOD/Harris survey, people with disabilities are at a “critical disadvantage” when compared with people without disabilities. Why is this so, when legislation such as the ADA was passed in 1990 in an attempt to improve the lives of people with disabilities?
2. 2. What are the various provisions of the three most significant pieces of legislation for people with disabilities: the ADA, ADAAA, and the IDEA?
3. 3. What can society in general and people with disabilities in particular do to change the cultural assumptions that cast people with disabilities as unreliable, expensive, and likely to sue their employer?
4. 4. Why haven’t other companies followed the lead of organizations, like IBM, that have effectively embraced disabilities as a significant component of diversity—viewing the recruitment and the retention of people with disabilities as a competitive advantage?

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