Spirituality as a Path of Adjustment to Misfortune in the Workplace: Implications for the Organizational Inclusion of Workers with Disabilities

The way workers with disabilities react to social support at work raises questions for management researchers, as it reveals a sharp divide — sometimes positive, sometimes negative. This ambivalence has direct managerial consequences: the very inclusion measures, accommodation policies and supportive supervisory behaviors that organizations deploy to support workers with disabilities can, paradoxically, be experienced as stigmatizing and undermine job attitudes, organizational citizenship and team cohesion. Disability studies offer a useful framework by linking this reaction to whether or not individuals have mourned the advantages their disability has taken from them. They use the concept of ‘adjustment to misfortune’ to describe the broadening of the individual’s scope of values, from the value of possessions to the value of being alive. Some authors identify spirituality as one of the antecedents of this adjustment. By spirituality, they mean an attitude of openness to transcendence and, consequently, attentiveness to the world and to others. This paper seeks to better understand how spirituality can be a source of adjustment to misfortune and of a positive response to social support in organizational settings. It draws on a comprehensive analysis of life narratives published by five persons with disabilities. It then derives implications for organizational behavior, supervisory practices, HR accommodation policies and the training of managers and co-workers in inclusive workplaces.