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The purpose of this paper is to integrate research on human resource systems with work on disability management practices to outline how multinationals across India and Germany are engaged in efforts to increase workplace inclusion of persons with a disability.

Semi-structured interviews with respondents from multinational corporations in India and Germany were conducted, transcribed, and analyzed.

Employers followed three guiding principles (i.e. beliefs): importance of harnessing diversity, encouraging multi-stakeholder engagement internally, and engaging with the external ecosystem to build internal human resource capabilities. Respondents further noted two interdependent and mutually constitutive programs that covered the life cycle of the employee: job flexibility provisions and integration programs. Country-specific differences existed in terms of perceived external stakeholder support and availability of talent.

The results complement prior research with respect to the importance of organizational factors for the inclusion of persons with a disability and also extend prior research by shedding light on the role of the national context in such inclusion endeavors.

Findings indicate that disability-inclusion principles may be universal, but their operationalization is region specific. Global organizations must be aware of these differences to design effective inclusion programs.

The study helps in designing and evaluating appropriate inclusion initiatives for persons with disabilities, an important yet underutilized group of potential employees in both India and Germany.

This is the first study to investigate country-specific commonalities and differences in fostering workplace inclusion of persons with disabilities in India and Germany.

Organizations are increasingly investing in disability-specific sensitization workshops. Yet, there is limited understanding about their hoped outcomes, that is, increased knowledge about disability-related issues and behavioral changes with respect to those with a disability. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness and boundaries of disability-specific sensitization training in organizations.

This is an interview-based study where 33 employees from five industries across India were interviewed over the span of a year.

The findings suggest that sensitization workshops are successful with regard to awareness generation. Paradoxically, the same awareness also reinforced group boundaries through “othering.” Further, workshops resonated more so with individuals who already had some prior experience with disability, implying that voluntary sensitization is likely attracting those who have the least need of such sensitization. The findings also suggest that non-mandated interventions may not necessarily influence organizational level outcomes, especially if workshops are conducted in isolation from a broader organizational culture of inclusion.

The present study helps outline effects of sensitization training initiatives and enhances our understanding about how negative attitudes toward persons with a disability can be overcome. The study also indicates how such training initiatives may inadvertently lead to “othering.” Finally, this study offers suggestions to human resource managers for designing impactful disability sensitization workshops.

In outlining the author’s experiences as a researcher and as an individual who engages with persons with a disability, the author wonders what meaningful research means when research subjects are people that society lumps together, largely views as stigmatized, and does not seem to understand. The author also notes how the research journey has impacted the author as an individual in rather unexpected ways. The paper aims to discuss this issues.

The author notes her personal experiences which can help all of us surface and think through our attempts at meaning-making through research.

When we do not quite understand our research subjects, the syntax of our thoughts can be dictated by our institutional contexts, and it is likely that we capture and feed the period’s dominant assumptions back into the context.

The author’s journey has been marked with worries, and has taught the author humility and acceptance. It has taught the author how we need to understand the subjects as whole beings, our institutional setting as it predisposes us to organize our research worlds, and our own biases as a researcher. Learning this is especially important for all of us when we study stigmatized subjects because definitions, measurement, and how we showcase a collective have implications for individual human beings.

The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual model for conducting research on how human resource and hiring managers form impressions of overqualified individuals and how these impressions affect their treatment of overqualified individuals during selection decisions.

Given the central role of psychological processes within the proposed model, this conceptual paper builds on a social cognition approach.

The proposed model consists of seven primary factors that can help propel research that is dynamic and contextually driven: attributes of the overqualified individual; job attributes; observers’ cognitive overqualification schemas; observers’ attitudes; observers’ categorization processes; the organizational context; and individual factors, all of which influence the observers’ treatment of overqualified individuals.

Most research has focussed on individual-level outcomes of overqualification such as job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and physical and psychological health, while overlooking how organizational decision makers perceive overqualification and how this subsequently affects the likelihood of individuals being selected for an interview. Given the global growth in the number of overqualified workers, understanding antecedents and correlates of overqualification and how these affect organizational selection decisions is a pressing need. The proposed model outlines several factors that can help us better understand the phenomenon of overqualification.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how employers define overqualification and mismatched qualification and whether they are willing to hire applicants whose educational and work experience credentials do not match job requirements.

This paper draws from qualitative interview data from 24 hiring managers across a wide range of US public sector and private industries. Data were analyzed and coded to identify themes related to managers’ perceptions of overqualification, matched, and mismatched qualification, and how these were related to selection decisions. A typology is proposed for categorizing applicant qualification levels and their potential human resource outcomes such as hiring decisions.

Hiring managers report that they are willing to interview and hire individuals whose education or experience exceed a job’s requirements as well as applicants with less than required education, but only if they possess sufficient compensatory experience.

Findings may not apply to industries where minimum educational levels are essential or to small organizations with few opportunities for career advancement.

Given current unemployment and underemployment levels, the findings can inform the job search strategies of job seekers. Overqualified applicants should not refrain from applying to job openings, particularly in organizations with opportunities for advancement and where education is considered an asset. Additionally, applicants should reveal their motivations for pursing positions that are intentional mismatches.

In contrast to previous studies conducted during periods of lower unemployment and underemployment, these data include managers’ perceptions of overqualification in a recession and post-recession job market context and thus are especially relevant to today’s employment context. The proposed typology distinguishes between categorizations of qualified, overqualified, and underqualified, and helps refine studies aimed at selection decisions.

Past research has largely portrayed job choice as a relatively rational and goal‐directed behavior where applicants make decisions contingent on organizational recruitment activities, or evaluations of job and organizational attributes. Research now informs us that job choice decisions may also be based on social comparisons and social influence. The purpose of this paper is to add to this body of knowledge by examining reasons why social influence is a key factor in job choice decisions of relatively young job seekers.

The study is based on in‐depth interview data from graduating seniors at an elite business school in India.

Respondents did not see themselves as acting based on social influence as much as they perceived others around them to be. Reasons they noted for others’ socially influenced job choice decisions were: peers and seniors are seen as more accessible and trustworthy than organizations; organizations do not share all and/or objective data, driving job seekers to other sources; job seekers are clueless and hence follow a “smart” herd; and job seekers make decisions for social status signaling. Respondents pointed to socially influenced job choices as being rational behaviors under certain conditions.

Generalizability of findings may be limited to young job seekers or to the Indian context, and the authors encourage replication. The authors also acknowledge the importance of individual difference variables in job choice decisions, a factor not considered in the present research.

Given that job seekers rally around others’ notion of an attractive job or an organization, the paper outlines several implications for managerial practice.

This study, in a yet unexamined cultural context, points to the simultaneous and combined importance of normative and informational social determinants of job choice, bias blind spots in one's own job choice perceptions and decisions, gender specific socialization influences on job choices, and the notion of job fit in terms of fitment with expectations of important reference groups.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Of the many challenges multinational companies encounter as they grow and develop across different countries and cultures, one of the less-discussed areas centers around disability and inclusion. As with many other issues, human resource managers at the head office need to establish policies that are both consistent across the organization so that they are fair, but also respect local customs and beliefs in any given area. On top of that, there are also compliance considerations within each nation to ensure there is no risk of legal problems, language concerns so that policies are fully understood, and additional monitoring to ensure those workers with a disability receive any additional support they require.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how board recruitment processes have been impacted by the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) governance changes requiring listed boards to report annually on their gender diversity policy and profile.

Employing a social constructivist approach, the research analyses interviews conducted with matched samples of board directors and stakeholders in 2010 and 2017 about board recruitment in ASX50 companies.

The introduction of ASX guidelines requiring gender reporting disrupted traditional board appointment processes. Women's gender capital gained currency, adding an additional dimension to the high levels of human and social capital seen as desirable for board appointments. The politics of women's presence is bringing about changes to the discourse and practice about who should/can be a director. The authors identify highly strategic ways in which women's gender capital has been used to agitate for more women to be appointed to boards.

While sample sizes are small, data within the themes cohered meaningfully across the time periods, making visible how women's presence in the board room has been reframed. Future research could consider what this may mean for board dynamics and how enduring are these changes.

This study highlights the forms that human and social capital take in board appointments, which can be instructive for potential directors, and how these intersect with gender capital. The insights from the study are relevant to board recruitment committees seeking to reflect their commitment to a more gender equitable environment.

There has been a recalibration of men's and women's gender capital in board appointments, and there is now a currency in femaleness disrupting the historical privilege afforded “maleness”.