The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Changing Goals at Microsoft

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) assists Ontarians by “developing, implementing and enforcing accessibility standards in order to achieve accessibility for Ontarians with disabilities…”. This act creates a standard that must be met through all facets of society. Whether it be in an in-store customer experience, in the workplace or online, AODA lays a framework that will assist in the day-to-day lives of Ontarians with disabilities. This act greatly impacts the IT field, in that it changes the way IT professionals utilize technology, in order to assist and accommodate disabled citizens. Disabled Ontarians occupy a significant population within all of Ontario, “15.5% of Ontario’s population has a disability and this

Culture is an observable, powerful force in any organization. “Made up of its members’ shared values, beliefs, symbols, and behaviors, culture guides individual decisions and actions at the unconscious level. As a result, it can have a potent effect on a company’s well-being and success” (One Page, n.d.).

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was created to help all citizens with disabilities and create laws supporting them. In Section 504, the focus is inclusion in schools. It ?established a system of vocational rehabilitation programs and services that were designed to increase opportunities for individuals with disabilities to prepare for, secure, maintain and regain employment.? It also ?prohibits discrimination on basis of disability in programs and activities, both public and private, that receive federal financial assistance.? (Winzer & Mazurek 2000) The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, section 504 also states that a person that is receiving funds from the federal government must arrange 2qhandicapped children in regular classrooms, unless the recipient has demonstrated that the regular classroom is unbeneficial. (Education Issues Series 2001) This act along with Americans with Disabilities Act ?form solid foundation on which today?s special education system is built.? (Winzer & Mazurek 2000) The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) extends the provisions of anti-discrimination that the Rehabilitation Act stated.

“Culture consists of the symbols, rituals, language, and social dramas that highlight organizational life, including myths, stories, and jargon. It includes the shared meanings associated with the symbols, rituals, and language. Culture combines the philosophy of the firm with beliefs, expectations, and values shared by members. It contains the stories and myths about the company's founder and its current leading figures. Organizational culture consists of a set of shared meanings and values held by a set of members in an organization that distinguish the organization from other organizations. An organization's culture determines how it perceives and reacts to the larger environment (Becker, 1982; Schein, 1996). Culture determines the nature

Individuals with disabilities continually encounter various forms of discrimination, including intentional exclusion from certain work areas, that denies them the opportunity to compete on an equal basis and to pursue those opportunities that guarantees success in the society. To guarantee success there is expectation regarding the relationship between the employer and employee, giving close attention to the various factors that should be considered to make the person with disability successful. This paper outlines the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the terms and conditions covering employees and employers as stated in Title 1. Title 1, as amended by the ADA amendment 2008, states that no covered entity will discriminate against a qualified individual based on disability (EEOC, 2015).

Corporate culture influences everyday employee actions – it’s how they interact with customers, each other, and make decisions. If the company culture does not align with the mission statement, it can create an identity crisis of sorts.

Every person in the organization with a disability has a different need. Organizations work around the clock in many occasions to comply with the accommodations of each individual in the organization. Educating staff in how to comply with the requirements of ADA can be quite challenging. Organizations are afraid to hire, retain or accommodate workers with disabilities because of lack of awareness of disability and accommodations issues, concern over costs, and legal liability (Kaye et al., 2011). It is therefore the responsibility of the organization to educate management about the law and train on disabilities and accommodations. The guidelines, regulations, and building codes should be implemented to make the facility more welcoming and inviting to workers with disabilities (Stryker, R. (2013).

All Organisations posses a distinct form of culture with some having more than a single culture. This culture is usually very difficult to measure, change and most especially change.

    A person with a disability, or handicap, can be defined as someone with a physical or mental impairment, which has a substantial or long-term adverse affect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities (Employment 2). Handicap workers face many challenges in the work place that the average person overlooks. Also, many special arrangements and alterations have been made to the workplace for people with handicaps. Accessibility, transportation, workload, and salary are just some of the many issues that must be considered with the prospect of employing the handicap.

Over the years, the workplace has experienced several instances of discrimination. In attempt to stop the discrimination, Title VII was passed. Although Title VII helped employers in terms of race, color, gender, religion and national origin, those who had disabilities continued to face the frustration of disability barriers in the workplace, given disability was not one of the listed protected classes. Employers abstained from hiring the disabled in fear of them not being able to perform at the same level as the other employees or the attitudes of such employees towards the disabled workers. Of course, there was some legal protection against discrimination: The Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973, but this law only applied to employees

To correctly address the problems facing Universal, an examination of the current business culture within the company is necessary. Business culture refers to cultural differences, and expectations of the way companies conduct business according to the cultural values associated with a company. The problem facing Universal is a lack of a unified culture. With an overemphasis on collaboration, but lacking in directional leadership; previously, the company has relied on acquiring new businesses during times of expansion. A lack of a unified culture, however, has led to lengthy debates and discussion, which has currently placed Universal at a competitive disadvantage. Presumably, a lack of a unified culture and the overemphasis on collaboration has become a culture within itself for Universal. Culture should at least

Hofstede (2003) defined culture as "the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another". Corporate culture refers to the intangible aspects of companies, including the interactions at an interpersonal level, and values, morals and ethics which permeate the way that decisions are made and polices are implemented (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2011). Just as when one undertakes international travel, and sees different cultures where there are different attitudes and traditions, one can also observe different

To correctly address the problems facing Universal, an examination of the current business culture within the company is necessary. Business culture refers to cultural differences, and expectations of the way companies conduct business according to the cultural values associated with a company. The problem facing Universal is a lack of a unified culture. With an overemphasis on collaboration, but lacking in directional leadership; previously, the company has relied on acquiring new businesses during times of expansion. A lack of a unified culture, however, has led to lengthy debates and discussion, which has currently placed Universal at a competitive disadvantage. Presumably, a lack of a unified culture and the overemphasis on collaboration has become a culture within itself for Universal. Culture should at least be implicitly defined within an organization because it provides a method for how to problem solve as well as prioritize goals (Dyer, 2015). For Universal, the lack of culture has created disagreements and delays, and both of these are intolerable in the current situation Universal faces.

Management researchers seem to agree that the things that companies do called "corporate culture" is an intangible concept and hence difficult to define. Among the attempts to define "corporate culture", the following definition is useful as a starting point:- "culture represents an interdependent set of values and ways of behaving that are common in a community and that tend to perpetuate themselves, sometimes over long periods of time" (Kotter and Heskett,1992,141) Peters and Watermann argue that changing a culture cannot be accomplished.

“For purposes of nondiscrimination laws (e.g. the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Section 188 of the Workforce Investment Act), a person with a disability is generally defined as someone who (1) has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more "major life activities," (2) has a record of such an impairment, or (3) is regarded as having such an