Attitudes of management undergraduates toward persons with disabilities: Aneed for change

Objective: To examine attitudes toward persons with disabilities of managem ent undergraduates who will be the next generation of professionals and man agers hiring and working with employees or clients with disabilities. Parti cipants: A convenience sample of 231 volunteer management undergraduates (1 29 men and 102 women) ranging in age from 19 to 51 years (M = 22.89, SD = 4 .43) from 7 human resource management and organizational behavior managemen t classes in a small western Canadian university. Main Outcome Measures: L. Gething's (1991) Interaction With Disabled Persons Scale (IDP) along with open-ended questions and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (D. P . Crowne & D. Marlowe, 1960). Results: This Canadian sample expressed a com plex set of positive and negative attitudes toward persons with disabilitie s. Conclusions: There is a need to sensitize management undergraduates to i ssues regarding employment of people with disabilities. Recommendations are presented.