Despite global efforts to improve workforce diversity and inclusion, people with disabilities continue to experience significantly lower employment rates than people without disabilities, partly due to employers’ concerns about their potential contributions. This study challenges such concerns by demonstrating how people with disabilities can create tangible value within teams. Specifically, we investigate how and when team member proactivity by people with disabilities leads to higher team performance. Drawing on the perspective of multifaceted agency and the psychology of inspiration, we conceptualize this proactivity as a desirable agentic behavior and examine its role in enhancing collective outcomes, particularly during challenging times for teams. Using multi-source and multi-wave survey data collected from 104 teams comprising both people with disabilities and those without disabilities across 12 Chinese firms in various industries, we investigate the positive impact of team member proactivity by people with disabilities on team performance and the moderating effect of team external threat perception. Therefore, our research contributes to disability research in team contexts and the literature on proactivity and inspiration by highlighting the positive impact of specific team members on team outcomes. We also offer practical insights for promoting the employment of people with disabilities and fostering disability-inclusive workplaces.
