CWF Seminar: Advancing skilled employment of autistic people: State of the art and avenues for future research

Autistic people experience barriers gaining and maintaining skilled employment despite organisations’ efforts to leverage their unique talents. The high rates of under- and un-employment of autistic individuals contribute to lost productivity and societal costs. Understanding how to build the capacity of employers to effectively utilise this group is essential, and thus this systematic literature review examines the evidence relating to the barriers and enablers for autistic people in gaining and maintaining skilled employment. We found that inclusive organisational cultures as well as the positive and inclusive attitudes of managers and co-workers were core to inclusion. Yet, the characteristics of positive attitudes from those supervising and working alongside autistic employees are not well understood. Moreover, we established that the future development of knowledge in this area is currently undermined by the limited number of studies in the area which are predominated by small scale, qualitative studies, and the under-utilisation of theory. To address this, we offer a number of research questions and guiding theoretical models we hope will inspire and build scholarship in this area.

About the speakers

Anna Krzeminska, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management at Macquarie Business School in Sydney, Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Institute for Business and Economics (AIBE), Research Fellow at the Leuphana University Research Center for Entrepreneurship Evidence in Germany, and the co-founding Director of the Queensland Neurodiversity Hub and the Macquarie Neurodiversity Hub. Anna is the Lead Investigator of the Neurodiversity project, an Australian-first project focused sustaining and scaling autism employment.

Charmine E. J. Härtel is Full Professor and Chair of Inclusive Organisational Leadership and Employment for The University of Queensland Business School and Co-Director (with Krzeminska) of the Queensland Neurodiversity Hub. Professor Härtel is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences (ASSA), the (U.S.) Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), ANZAM, and AHRI, among others.

Date and Time

Wed., 12 June 2019
2:30–4:00 PM AEST

Location

120 Lend Lease Room
1 Management Drive
Macquarie University NSW 2109

Register

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Flyer

The flyer for the event is available for download.