Management Practice Insights
DOI: 10.59571/mpi.v4i1.3
Year: 2026, Volume: 4, Issue: 1, Pages: 14-20
Original Article
Sajeev Abraham Georgei*
iS.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research
*Corresponding author: [email protected]
Received Date:18 August 2025, Accepted Date:18 March 2026, Published Date:31 March 2026
Employees with physical, sensory, neurological and short-term disabilities can offer organisations unique strengths that result in process innovation, defect reduction and team resilience. This form of diversity — aka disability diversity — spans both visible and invisible disabilities and remains one of the most underleveraged assets. These assets can be utilised in logistics, manufacturing and service operations. But poorly matched job roles, inaccessible workflows, communication hurdles and limited investment in assistive technologies can restrict employees with disabilities from performing at their best. So, how can Chief Operating Officers (COOs), Chief Sustainability Officers (CSOs) and senior supply chain leaders make the most effective use of disability diversity hires in their operations? Recent research by Ying Zhang, Sriram Narayanan, Tharo Soun, Kalyanmoy Deb and Dustin Cole found that disability inclusion can deliver measurable gains in productivity.1 To do so, the research recommends integrating disability inclusion into operational architecture, shifting it from a narrow focus on accommodation and compliance to a lever for productivity, resilience and long-term value creation
1 Ying Zhang et al., Maximizing Disability Diversity, Language Diversity, and Productivity: A Study in Apparel Manufacturing,’ Production and Operations Management 32, no. 12 (2023): 3783–800, https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.14073.
2 WHO Team, Disability, WHO Factsheet, 7 March 2023, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/disabilityand-health.
3 Descartes, Descartes’ Study Reveals 76% of Supply Chain and Logistics Operations Are Experiencing Notable Workforce Shortages, Descartes, 30 January 2024, https://www.descartes.com/resources/news/descartes-studyreveals-76-supply-chain-and-logistics-operations-areexperiencing.
4 Julian McBride and Allyce Torres, Companies That Lead in Disability Inclusion Outperform Peers Financially, Reveals New Research from Accenture (Accenture and American Association of People with Disabilities, 2023), https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/2023/companies-thatlead-in-disability-inclusion-outperform-peers-financially-revealsnew-research-from-accenture.
5 Sriram Narayanan et al., “Disability Inclusion in Operations,” in Responsible Business Operations: Challenges and Opportunities, ed. Jayashankar M. Swaminathan and Vinayak Deshpande (Springer International Publishing, 2021), https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3030-51957-5_6.
6 Global Disability Summit, “Global Disability Inclusion Report – ISPO,” (2025) https://www.ispoint.org/resource/global-disabilityinclusion-report/.
7 Martin Samaan, “The Sustainable Development Goals,” United Nations Sustainable Development, 17 May 2018, https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/developmentgoals/.
8 Shikha Bhardwaj et al., “Underrated yet Successful! A Framework of Invisible-Disabled Underdog Entrepreneurs,” Journal of Business Research 168 (November 2023): 114199, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.114199.
9 Caroline Casey, “Inclusive Leadership Fuels the Fight Against Disability Exclusion,” Careers, Forbes, 26 June 2024, https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinecasey/2024/06/26/inclu sive-leadership-fuels-the-fight-against-disability-exclusion/.
10 Laurie A. Henneborn, The Disability Inclusion Imperative, 2023, https://disabilityin.org/resource/the-disability-inclusionimperative.
11 Tobias Krause, Disability Discrimination: ZipDo Education Reports 2026 (2026), https://zipdo.co/disability-discrimination-statistics/.
12 Sriram Narayanan et al., “Disability Inclusion in Operations.”
13 Lee Matthews et al., “Broadening the Scope of Operations and Supply Chain Management Scholarship on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Justice, Paradox, and Dialectical Lenses,” Production and Operations Management 34, no. 4 (2025): 820–28, https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478241243384.
14 Dustin Cole et al., “Does Leader Disability Status Influence the Operational Performance of Teams with Individuals with Disabilities? An Empirical Study in the Apparel Industry,” Journal of Operations Management 70, no. 3 (2024): 459–81, https://doi.org/10.1002/joom.1289.
15 European Social Fund Plus, Specialisterne Foundation (on-Going), European Social Fund Plus, 11 May 2022, https://european-social-fund-plus.ec.europa.eu/en/socialinnovation-match/case-study/specialisterne-foundation-going.
16 Yumna Mobin, “Disability Inclusion in Workplace: Best Practices, Success Stories from Leading Companies,” Workplace-4-0/Diversity-and-Inclusion, ETHRWorld.Com, 10 December 2024, https://hr.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/workplace-40/diversity-and-inclusion/disability-inclusion-in-workplacebest-practices-success-stories-from-leadingcompanies/116026139.
17 Brad Smith, “Doubling down on Accessibility: Microsoft’s next Steps to Expand Accessibility in Technology, the Workforce and Workplace,” The Official Microsoft Blog, 28 April 2021, https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2021/04/28/doubling-downon-accessibility-microsofts-next-steps-to-expand-accessibilityin-technology-the-workforce-and-workplace/.
18 Sriram Narayanan et al., “Disability Inclusion in Operations.”
19 Creating 100,000 Jobs &; Becoming One of the Largest Apparel Exporters, 2025, 56:25, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zmeEYAwkyk.
20 Anastasiya Simsek, How DHL Is Redefining Inclusion at Scale -Air Cargo Week, ACW, 23 February 2026, https://aircargoweek.com/how-dhl-is-redefining-inclusion-atscale/.
21 Roshni Balaji, “How Flipkart’s Inclusive Workplace Policies Are Empowering the Differently-Abled,” 22 August 2019, https://yourstory.com/socialstory/2019/08/startup-flipkartinclusive-workplace-policy-disabled.
© 2026 Published by SPJIMR. This is an open-access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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