In contemporary societies, such as Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, an emphasis has been placed on moving individuals with mental illness into mainstream paid employment. Although mainstream employment may offer an inclusive environment, existing scholars argue that various problems can arise with this transition to paid work. For example, employers often report a minimal understanding regarding accommodations for someone with mental health issues and workers may be reluctant to disclose mental health issues for fear of workplace discrimination and/or discharge. Social enterprises have been created to address these problems and the available literature illustrates that these organizations are beneficial for individuals with mental illness because they offer necessary workplace accommodations that are often not found in mainstream jobs, allow for engagement in meaningful activity and provide the opportunity to earn a wage. However, scholars have primarily relied on secondary sources and/or surveys of these organizations and, as a result, there is a limited understanding of how social enterprise organizations work in practice. This thesis research seeks to address this gap by using participant observation, along with semi-structured interviews and focus group data, to produce an in-depth analysis that examines the daily operations of a social enterprise in Ontario, Canada, and the experiences of the workers within it. Key themes of analysis pertain to the nature of the work and the labour process; workers’ wages; the organization as a place for meaningful activity and social interaction; and the provision of workplace accommodations. The findings that have emerged from this project have empirical, methodological and conceptual contributions to the existing work on social enterprises for individuals with mental illness. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Employee mental health claims have become a costly burden for Canadian workplaces, therefore many organizations are seeking to adopt progressive disability management strategies to support employees with mental health conditions who are either returning to work or trying to remain at work. Developing and implementing effective workplace accommodation practices is one such strategy to support employees. Negotiating workplace accommodations has been recommended in the literature to be an interactive process between the employee and workplace stakeholders. However, there is very limited knowledge regarding the ways in which discussing and negotiating accommodations unfolds, or how employees and stakeholders experience the process of negotiating accommodations. This thesis includes the results of a qualitative study exploring how negotiating accommodations unfolds between employees with mental health conditions and workplace stakeholders, and a sub-analysis of the larger study data exploring how social capital can impact the negotiation process. In order to capture varied perspectives, in depth interviews were conducted with employees in diverse roles who self-identified as having a mental health condition that required accommodation, and stakeholders who were experienced in negotiating accommodations. A qualitative descriptive design was used to iteratively collect and analyze data. Constructive and interpretive strategies including initial and focused coding, memo writing and clustering were used to identify themes about negotiating accommodations. The negotiation process, as reported by participants in this study, was found to be a non-linear, social and political process that unfolded as a combination of micro formal and informal sub-processes, in contrast to the concrete, formal accommodation process mandated by some organizational policies. In addition, there were a number of factors that were experienced as either helpful or challenging in the process of negotiating accommodations. Social capital arose as an important element influencing how employees with mental health conditions accessed accommodations. The findings of a qualitative sub-analysis of the original data set focused on the ways in which workplace social capital impacted the experience of requesting and negotiating accommodations. Some elements of social capital were found to be dynamic, with workers able to accumulate, rebuild and spend social capital in the course of their employment. Employee reputation, employee self-confidence and likeability with coworkers and managerial staff arose as key elements of social capital. Other elements of social capital were external perceptions constructed by coworkers and workplace stakeholders, such as return-on-investment of accommodating and judgements of value to the organization. Overall, workplace social capital appeared to impact how employees experienced the process of requesting and negotiating accommodations, but it was not the determining factor of whether accommodation requests were granted. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / This Master’s thesis focused on the process of discussing and negotiating workplace accommodations between workers with mental health conditions and workplace stakeholders. Six workers with mental health conditions and 6 other workplace stakeholders who had experience negotiating accommodations shared their experiences in interviews. Study findings highlighted that the negotiation process can be complex and non-linear, and is impacted by social and political factors. Workplace social capital had an impact when workers with mental health conditions requested and negotiated accommodations. For example, employee self-confidence, “likeability” (as perceived by coworkers and management), reputation as a good performer and perceived value to the organization appeared to shape how workers experienced the process of negotiating accommodations. Worker status and position also reportedly had an impact on access to supports. It should be noted, however, that social capital was only one of the factors that workers needed to be successfully accommodated, and their social capital could be at risk of being exhausted due to behavior or performance issues. This thesis expands our understanding of the accommodation negotiation process, and the impact of social and political forces on disability management strategies.