Workarounds and social support: the saviors for visually impaired bankers in India
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-05-2017-0031 |
| Pages | 138-156 |
| Date | 14 May 2018 |
| Published date | 14 May 2018 |
| Author | Amit Jain,Divya Sharma |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information & communications technology |
Workarounds and social support:
the saviors for visually impaired
bankers in India
Amit Jain
Department of Organizational Behavior, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta,
Kolkata, West Bengal, India, and
Divya Sharma
Department of Management Information Systems,
Indian Institute of Management, Rohtak, Haryana, India
Abstract
Purpose –This research aims to study the coping experience of visually impaired (VI) bankers in India
after they have received reasonable accommodation from their employers, that is, the work process or
environmenthas been suitably modified to ensure a barrier-freeenvironment for them.
Design/methodology/approach –Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 12 VI
bankers working with publicsector banks in India. A phenomenological approach was adoptedduring data
analysis.
Findings –Despitethe provision of reasonable accommodations, VI employeesoften find it difficult to fulfill
their job responsibilities. This is on accountof extensive paperwork required for completionof their jobs and
the partially accessible information systems available to them. As a result, these VI employees are found
resorting to workarounds to carry out their jobs, with the nature of workarounds adopted varying with the
type and extentof visual impairment. Furthermore,it is observed that VI employeesrequire social support not
only fromtheir superiors and peersbut also from their subordinatesand customers to carry outtheir tasks.
Research limitations/implications –Data collection was done through snowball sampling which
could have resultedin sampling bias. Due to confidentialityissues, observation of workarounds in practice by
VI employeescould not be carriedout as part of the study.
Originality/value –The study contributes to the literature on integration of persons with disabilities
(PwDs) by examining their coping experience after provision of reasonable accommodations. It emphasizes
the role of workarounds,an under-studied area in PwD integration,as well as support of other stakeholders in
the experience.
Keywords Social support, Workarounds, Persons with disabilities, Reasonable accommodations,
Visual impairment
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Persons with disabilities (PwDs) are increasingly becoming part of today’s diverse
workforce (ESCAP, 2015). Literature relating to the integration of PwDs in the workplace
has identified the provision of reasonableaccommodations at the workplace as an important
factor in the integration process. An important aspect which has received much academic
attention, in the stream of literature concerned with the integration of PwDs in the
workforce, has been the provision of reasonable accommodations at workplace (Erickson
et al.,2014;Kulkarni and Lengnick-Hall, 2014). Reasonable accommodations refer to
modifications in the work process or environment to ensure a barrier-free environment for
JICES
16,2
138
Received29 May 2017
Revised16 November 2017
Accepted17 November 2017
Journalof Information,
Communicationand Ethics in
Society
Vol.16 No. 2, 2018
pp. 138-156
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/JICES-05-2017-0031
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-996X.htm
PwDs (EEOC, 1992). Such accommodations include the provision of assistive technologies,
environmental accessibility, personal assistance or even job restructuring (Colella and
Bruyère, 2011).
Extant research on reasonable accommodations has reported that many PwDs do not
seek reasonable accommodations from their employers/managers due to varied reasons,
such as individual attributes (Baldridge and Swift, 2013) and normative appropriateness
(Baldridge and Veiga, 2006). However, it has also been demonstrated that granting
reasonable accommodations leads to significant job satisfaction among PwDs (Balser and
Harris, 2008) and impacts perceptionsof fairness among coworkers of PwDs. (Carpenter and
Paetzold, 2013;Colella, 2001). Studies have primarily focused on the role and experience of
PwDs before requesting for reasonableaccommodations (Paetzold et al., 2008;Schartz et al.,
2006) and the role of coworkers after the reasonable accommodations requested have been
granted (Colella, 2001). However, scholars have not examined the experience of PwDs, with
respect to their task and their work environment, after they received the desired
accommodations.This study is an attempt to address this crucial gap.
Because the accommodation needs of PwDs are specific to the type of disability, the
present research examines the experiences of visually impaired[1] (VI)persons. Banks were
found to be a particularly relevant organizational context for this study because of several
factors: first, the amount of paperworkrequired, second, the unavoidable use of information
systems and also the financial responsibility associated with most job roles. The present
study therefore uses a phenomenological approachto study the experiences (Sanders, 1982)
of VI persons employed in banks in India.
In summary, the research shows that the mere provision of assistive technologies to
ensure reasonable accommodations for VI employees in banks is not sufficient for VI
employees to effectively and efficiently performtheir tasks. This is on account of two main
reasons. First, most banksstill require employees to undertake extensive paperwork even in
routine tasks. Second, the routine work performed by bank employees requires the use of
information systems which may not be entirely accessible to persons with visual
impairment, such as blindnessor low vision. Specifically, through our study, we empirically
illustrate that VI bank employees often need to resort to different types of workarounds
(Zainuddin and Staples, 2016) to perform their day-to-day roles even if reasonable
accommodations are provided. Second, we demonstrate that the nature of workarounds
used by VI employees varies with the type and extent of their visual impairment. Third, we
elaborate the importance of social support for VI employees not only from their superiors
and peers (Frese, 1999)but also from their subordinates and customers.
This paper is organized according to the following scheme. We first discuss the
theoretical backgroundwith a focus on workarounds and social supportin an organizational
context. Next, we present the research contextand details of the research methodology used
in the study. This is followed by a presentationof the results and a detailed discussion of the
findings of our research. We conclude withthe contributions and limitations of this research
and scope for future studies.
Theoretical background
With the advent of information technology (IT),commercial banks in India adopted the core
banking system (CBS) (Hu, 2006), which required their employees to use networked
computer and information systems. With the shift of work from manual and paper-based
tasks to computer and information systems driventasks, one of the major accommodations
requested by VI employees, especiallyin banks, was the provision of assistive technologies
on their computer systems (Lazar et al.,2007). Assistive technologies refer to equipment,
Workarounds
and social
support
139
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