Receiving Service from a Person with a Disability: Stereotypes, Perceptions of Corporate Social Responsibility, and the Opportunity for Increased Corporate Reputation

Abstract

Whereas advocates point to benefits of employing people with disabilities for organizations, employers’ concern over negative customer reactions is still a barrier to the employment of people with disabilities in service occupations. We contribute to this discussion and the management literature on disability by examining the effects of receiving service from employees with a hearing disability and employees who use a wheelchair on corporate reputation. Based on signaling theory, stereotypes, and valuation-by-association logic, we argue and find in a multi-study, multi-method approach that employing people with disabilities can be perceived as corporate social responsibility and leads to better corporate reputation. A field study with 317 customers of a large international supermarket chain in Lithuania demonstrates higher ratings of corporate reputation for customers receiving service from an employee with a hearing disability than for customers receiving service from an employee without disabilities. In an online experiment using a Solomon four-group design, we utilize video vignettes to test our model with corporate social responsibility perceptions as a mediator. Together, our findings show that managers’ concerns about how biased customers might respond to service employees with disabilities are likely unfounded and highlight – in addition to an ethical case for inclusion – the potential for organizations to benefit from employing of people with disabilities, as it leads to favorable reputation effects for organizations.