Include Me: The Role of Disability Voice in Co‐Constructing the Workplace Inclusion of People With Disabilities

ABSTRACT People with disabilities (PWD) often face barriers to inclusion at work. To tackle this challenge, past research focused on the role of organizations to create more inclusive workplaces. What remains understudied, however, is the role that PWD often take themselves in shaping their inclusion experiences. In this paper, we take a co‐constructionist perspective on inclusion and study disability voice as PWDs' self‐inclusion efforts with which they claim inclusion at work through speaking out about their disability‐related needs, concerns, and ideas. Using mixed methods, we explore disability voice as a construct and study how it affects the inclusion experiences of PWD in three studies. In Study 1, we draw on 50 interviews with PWD in Germany and in Switzerland and identify seven facets of disability voice. In Study 2, we build on our findings from the first study and develop a disability voice scale. In Study 3, we analyze a sample of 676 PWD across two measurement waves to test a theoretical model examining the relationship between disability voice and PWDs' inclusion perceptions, as well as disability visibility as a potential boundary condition. We find that disability voice is positively related to PWDs' perceptions of opportunity for authenticity and belongingness. However, disability visibility did not significantly moderate these relationships. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.