Disability and home automation: Insights and challenges within organizational settings

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between disability and new technologies, specifically home automation, evidencing how the application of new technologies can effectively promote the social inclusion of people with disability. New technologies in all their forms significantly changed the social and economic activities, recording an increasing application in any organizational settings, also allowing people with disability to be significantly involved by improving their social status and commitment in the social daily life. New technologies can facilitate and promote the social integration of disabled persons, allowing them to participate into several social daily activities, acquiring some kind of autonomy. There is an explosion of technology applications in the disabled people’s daily life in different ways, but this phenomenon is still under researched in the literature. This paper aims to identify and evidence the role and function of home automation, for people with disability, specifically we aim to outline if and how the home automation solutions and devises can support people with disability improving their social inclusion. This theoretical study, conducted through a deep review of the contributions in the literature and in the practice through an online search from a 30-year period (1998–2018) on the link between technology/home automation and disability, as an interesting research starting point, contributes to systematize and clarify the main contributions on this phenomenon, also identifying new research perspectives.