Motives for entrepreneurship and establishing one’s own business among people with disabilities: Findings from a scoping review

Abstract

As people with disabilities often face difficulties entering the labour market, entrepreneurship and self-employment are often regarded as an opportunity to gain employment and earn a living. This article presents a scoping review that aims to investigate what establishment motives previous studies have identified for self-employment and entrepreneurship among people with disabilities. Four themes emerged: economic motives; flexibility and self-determination; avoiding discrimination; and personal development and being able to contribute something. In the article we discuss the results and relate them to the general discourse on entrepreneurship, which often includes the concept of autonomy. We argue that the findings suggest implications for how to develop support and strategies for this group, to help them avoid ending up in an even more vulnerable position. In this work, the individual’s own motives for establishment are of great value.

Points of interest

• People with disabilities often find it difficult to find paid work. One way to earn an income is to start their own business.

• This article summarizes the findings of 16 research articles and one book chapter on why people with disabilities start their own business.

• The findings from earlier studies show that people with disabilities have different motives for starting their own business, such as economic reasons; to be independent and be able to decide their working patterns; to avoid being discriminated; for personal development; and to be able to contribute positively to the lives of others.

• To be able to provide appropriate support, different stakeholders, such as politicians and professionals, need to know why people with disabilities start their own businesses.

Keywords:

• Disability, Entrepreneurship
• Self-employment
• Necessity
• Opportunity
• Motives for business start-up

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by FORTE under Grant [2018-01754]. The authors would like to thank the academic librarians Helen Rasmussen, Markus Svensson, and Lena Wennerholm at Malmö University, who assisted with the database searches and the use of EndNote and Rayyan.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflicts of interest were reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.