The lived experience of freedom among entrepreneurs with disabilities

Abstract

PurposeWhile it is argued that entrepreneurship provides considerable freedom, it is also underlined that it might have the potential for exclusion and oppression. The study contributes to this debate and aims to investigate how entrepreneurs with disabilities (EWD) ascribe meaning to freedom in a contested terrain informed by entrepreneurial autonomy as well as constraints due to impairments and an ableist social environment.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a qualitative approach and builds upon the critical concepts of negative, positive and social freedom as a theoretical lens for the in-depth analysis of the twenty-nine semi-structured interviews with EWD in Hungary.FindingsFindings indicate that EWD experiences freedom in ambivalent ways. Engaging in the discourse of entrepreneurship offers a subversive discursive toolkit to debunk the constraints established by ableism, enabling both negative and positive freedom. However, individualism being at the heart of entrepreneurship results in othering and undermines social freedom. Thus, while entrepreneurship offers greater individual freedom in both a negative and a positive sense for people with disabilities (PWD), it nevertheless fails to promote collective social change.Originality/valueContributing to the critical disability literature, findings contrast the view that having an impairment only reduces a person's abilities and highlight that it also affects the very nature of liberty. Contributing to critical studies on entrepreneurship, the case of EWD provides empirical evidence for understanding the simultaneous emancipatory and oppressive character of entrepreneurship through the interplay of the subjective experience of freedom related to disability and entrepreneurship.

How entrepreneurship drives life satisfaction among people with intellectual disabilities (PwID): a mixed-method approach

“…, 2021; self-realization, Bukari et al. , 2021; freedom, Hidegh et al. , 2022), and that are, in some respects, positively related to having well-being related outcomes.…”

A fogyatékosság és a vállalkozói identitás kapcsolata az interszekcionalitás lencséjén keresztül

“…nehéz elérése miatt -hólabdamódszerrel dolgoztunk (Silverman, 2008). A kutatás során 2018 és 2020 között két szakaszban, először 10, majd 19, összesen huszonkilenc félig strukturált interjú felvételére került sor (Csillag et al, 2020;Hidegh et al, 2022). A részvétel feltétele az volt, hogy az illető fogyatékossággal élő vállalkozóként határozza meg magát, legalább három év vállalkozói tapaszta-lattal rendelkezzen (Bagheri et al, 2015) és/vagy legalább három alkalmazottja legyen (Parker Harris et al, 2014).…”