Diversity from the customer's perspective: Good or bad? The case of disability

Abstract

AbstractThe effect of workforce diversity on customers is an important and understudied topic in marketing. The article reviews the published studies investigating how customers perceive and are influenced by employees with disabilities. Studies included for review examined how customers respond when served by an employee with a disability. Scopus was used as the primary database in the search for articles. A total of eight studies have been reviewed. Nearly all the studies are published recently, indicating the growing academic interest in the topic. Findings are discussed as there is no consensus on whether disability can positively or negatively affect the customer’s perception of the employee and the company. Research gaps, methodologies and limitations are addressed, and future research directions are suggested and discussed. This review indicates that this topic is under investigated and there is still room for research given the small number of published work and the methodological and theoretical gaps.