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Introduction
People with disabilities form a group that assiduously runs the risk of being socially excluded, but also in societies, some factors sometimes make it difficult and, in others, favor their social as well as labor integration. If the data of the last years in Spain (INE, 2016) is examined, the tendency is to a steady progression in the process of inclusion of this group in the labor market. However, there is still a long way to go: an extensive journey that takes place, among other things, by sensitizing society in general and employers in particular, in favor of that standardization and integration.
At present, European guidelines provide that the Member States must "fight the obstacles to have a Europe without barriers" (Europe, 2020, p. 3), and point to employment as one of the primary areas of action. Simultaneously, the rules of intervention with people with disabilities in Spain, warns that full and active participation and inclusion in society are established as general principles of intervention, and this, without any doubt, includes work activity. The right to work is considered fundamental in conditions of equality and non-discrimination, and self-employment is recognized through promotion policies that develop social and economic initiatives on their own.
At the same time, it is essential to underline that there has been a very substantial paradigm shift in the approach to disability, which, in no small extent, is reflected in recent literature on this issue (Suárez-Ortega, Sánchez-García & Alvarado-Blanquer, 2014; Vázquez-Ferreira, 2008, 2010). A movement of theoretical-practical thinking has been developed that perseveres in the idea of independent life, leaving behind the concept of a rehabilitation intervention to pass to the personal autonomy of people with disabilities (Millán-Jiménez & Pérez-Manzano, 2015; Toboso-Martín, 2013). This shift necessarily involves the development of policies and actions that facilitate the inclusion of people with disabilities in the labor market (Odismet, 2017; Olaz-Captain & Ortiz-Garcia, 2017;Ortiz-García, García & Manzanera, 2017; Ruiz de Velasco, 2017). The focus on the quality of life is imposed, and for this, it is essential to consider the professional activity, because the first one cannot be conceived, and the full inclusion of people with disabilities, if they are prevented from accessing employment.
Before proceeding, it is essential to specify the concept of disability that is part, since its meaning, like most of the terms that are linked to external factors and cultural valuations, have been transformed over time.
The definition of disability that best fits the purposes of this article is that of:
Promote, protect and ensure the full enjoyment and in similar conditions of all human rights and fundamental freedoms to all people with disabilities and promote respect for their inherent dignity. People with disabilities include those who have physical, mental, or intellectual or sensory long-term that, by interacting with various barriers, can prevent their full and active participation in an equal society of basis with others (Royal Legislative Decree, 1/2013, arts. 1.II and 2).
The latest version of the WHO (2017), qualifies a little more because among other things it has extended and specified the concept itself, understanding it as a general term that covers:
Deficiencies, limitations of the activity and restrictions on participation. Deficiencies are problems that affect a body structure or function; the limitations of the activity are difficulties in executing actions or tasks, and the restrictions of the participation are problems to participate in vital situations (Lopera-Gómez, 2017, p. 42).
Besides, all the statistical data indicate that the labor activity rate of people with disabilities is lower than that of people without disabilities (INE, 2016), and although these figures confirm a positive progression, there is still an undeniable inequality between both collectives.
The labor inclusion of people with disabilities is small, but it is even lower talking about self-employment and entrepreneurship (Manzanera, 2018). Most people who have a disability and who work, do so as employees. The option of being self-employed and entrepreneurial is a possibility that has yet to be discovered by many people with disabilities.
The Public Administration has implemented measures to boost the labor market concerning this group (García-Palma, 2017). Actions such as reductions, in the form of a bonus, in contribution quotas for social security, both for employees and for those who work for their account. However, although this type of measure promotes and encourages the inclusion, as self-employed workers, of this group in the labor market, there are many other factors that directly or indirectly affect the possibility of the undertaking.
It is reiterated the existence of "certain social aspects that explain a firm predisposition to undertake, and that can motivate an entrepreneurial behavior" (Ortiz-García & Millán-Jiménez, 2011, p. 222). These social factors have an undeniable transcendence in the gestation of the entrepreneurial activity of all people, with or without disabilities (García-Escribano & Fernández-Casado, 2016).
In this article is analyzed the elements of the sociocultural environment (Alvarez, Noguera & Urbano, 2012; Busenitz et al., 2003; Steyaert & Katz, 2006; Verheul & Thurik, 2001) that hinder or favor the entrepreneurship of people with disabilities. That is, those aspects related to the physical, cultural and social environment in which people with disabilities act (Olaz & Ortiz, 2017). In short, the external factors that sometimes operate as impediments and others as stimuli of free work, the conditions of exclusion/inclusion experienced by the collective and the inequality gap that occurs in self-employment among people with disabilities will be studied and without a disability.
Methodology
A qualitative methodology based on in-depth, semi-structured, individualized and oral interviews has been used to achieve these objectives. It has been considered that it was the most suitable technique because it provides margins of freedom for both the interviewee and the interviewer, which adds a wealth of nuances to the discourse.
Regarding the interviewees, there are 15 people related to the world of disability and entrepreneurship. Specifically, three profiles are identified: people with disabilities and experience in entrepreneurship and their families; people with disabilities without experience in entrepreneurship and, finally, professionals and institutional representatives related to the disability (doctor, work counselor, and social worker).
On the other hand, the analysis of discourse has been executed with the professional software ATLAS.TI, and both at the textual level (from codified citations) and in the conceptual (working relationships between codes and appointments).
Thus, the design of the script of the interview has responded to the different dimensions from which entrepreneurship is addressed and its characteristics in this group: personal and psychological; institutional/legal; environmental culture; educational/formative; economic and family. This is, in short, the methodology that has been followed in the preparation of the research work that is the basis of this article.
Qualitative analysis of social and cultural factors that affect the entrepreneurship of people with disabilities
Usually, social (environmental) and cultural aspects are understood to be those circumstances unrelated to people, such as the socioeconomic environment, economic or emotional support, geographical scope, entrepreneurship culture, or social referents, among many others, which may encourage, moderate or inhibit entrepreneurship in people with disabilities. This research identified 18 environmental and cultural aspects that moderate or inhibit entrepreneurship in people with disabilities and offer clues that can explain why there is so little entrepreneurial activity among these people.
Socioeconomic environment and definition of a disadvantaged group
The socioeconomic environment understood as the economic and social environment that surrounds a person and that influences their development is one of the cardinal factors that affect entrepreneurial behavior. This socio-economic environment generates a climate that begins with the very definition of disadvantaged groups, one of which will be that of people with disabilities. This definition adds difficulty to the disability due to its belonging to one of the groups most punished in their access to the labor market together with others, such as women, young people, the elderly, immigrants, among others. Different interviewees notice this situation:
It is complicated because I am a 54-year-old woman and with a very high handicap, it is a kind of ... Sometimes, the feeling that I have is that I am no longer worthy to society, it is hard, but it is like that, you have that feeling (I.9).
In this scenario it is much sadder than a person with a disability is relegated to second place and does not even have access to the kind of resources that people without disabilities have. Because there is also some discrimination, both disabled people, women, people who have passed the age of 50, what we all know (I.14).
Use of language
The very use of language understood as to how the interviewees refer to the disability, or the person who has it can influence the social culture and the perception of disability, sponsoring or, on the contrary, retracting entrepreneurship. Inappropriate use of language perpetuates prejudice. In this way, an interviewee, a family companion of a person with a disability, despite her training as a teacher and nurse, when talking about disability, resorts to an indeterminate expression and says: due to her ... (I.1), while another of the interviewees, a person with disabilities and experience in entrepreneurship, refers to people with disabilities as this type of person (I.2) and uses the word "invalid" on different occasions: I am disabled, but I can develop my capacity for another via (I.2).
Social references
Another element that can intervene in the creation of a social environment favorable to entrepreneurship is the visibility of disability through social referents. Being able to perceive people with disabilities who are enterprising and who are socially recognized, can be a stimulus for other people, with the same problem, to think about opting for entrepreneurship. However, many interviewees point out the existence of a few social referents in this field:
(...) I would like to meet entrepreneurs with disabilities (I.8).
(...) The cases of entrepreneurs with disabilities, which have not been many unfortunately I have had the opportunity to know (I.4).
Although, many interviewees point out the importance, as a model, of these social referents:
(...) In many places they already know people with disabilities who have been working and are surprised by the skills and good work they do (I.5).
(...) Facing society is like a mirror (...), not a mirror, but as an example of what can be done (I.12).
Economic or emotional support
The socio-economic and cultural environment may be decisive in the decision to undertake a business activity, but for a person with disabilities acts from different perspectives. This environment may or may not be favorable to entrepreneurship, as the person with a disability distinguishes economic or emotional support in it.
Most of the interviewees indicate the need that people with disabilities have for family and institutional support so that they can take the step of entrepreneurship. This support is usually specified in support of economic-financial, but also emotional, conceived as empathy and trust, and borrowed primarily by the family:
(...) The support of the family is essential for the person with disabilities to access the labor market and be a person who works and does not stay at home (I.5).
(...) In my case, concerning family members, I have had all the support of the world (I.9).
Likewise, institutional support is revealed as a persistent requirement by many of the interviewees:
(...) The aid from the institutions is fundamental (I.8).
(...) With the most institutional support it seems that things change (I.7).
When these supports are not presented, they are one of the difficulties, which greatly condition the entrepreneurship of people with disabilities, more highlighted by the interviewees:
(...) Feeling alone and not having support from family or friends that can help and empower them (I.1).
(...) The family environment, friendship, relationships, and third parties, so there I do put a sharp point (I.2).
Positive discrimination
Linked to this type of support, arise referred to as positive discrimination, understood as aid or non-contributory pensions that when basic needs, can inhibit or moderate the enterprise, depending on the needs that cover the person perceives. Thus, although most of the interviewees are favorable to this type of aid, many of them point out that they should not be excessively different, since in some cases, more than an incentive effect, they could even stop entrepreneurial behavior:
(...) This venture must have valuable help but not excessively different from the average entrepreneur because society can not see the disabled entrepreneur as an element to be overcome (I.10).
(...) Sometimes also the positive discrimination that we are fighting so hard to do and such and that is necessary, but we also protect and underestimate the capabilities of these people due to ignorance (I.4).
However, despite these possible inhibiting effects of entrepreneurship, a discourse favorable to this type of support appears clearly, although with specific cautions:
(...) Sometimes the State gives a series of privileges to people with disabilities, and that can help them a lot, but I think not enough due to the little development that there is in the State to all this sector of people with disabilities (I.1).
(...) I would highlight, for example, taxation, given that people with disabilities at the time of undertaking work have deductions and subsidies that are higher than people without disabilities (I.13).
Geographical scope
Another aspect recognized as positively influential is the geographical area: the physical location where the work activity will take place, a rural or urban environment, since this context determines not only the resources it can offer but also the sociocultural elements that characterize it. This is indicated by several of the interviewees:
Because when you live at the city, you have much more access to information, resources, training, and then it can be a significant limitation living in a small place away, with little communication. It can be a fundamental limitation (I.15).
It is not the same to undertake in a city that to undertake in a town, that an entrepreneur of a rural environment that has it more complicated than the entrepreneur of a city (I.10).
Therefore, there is a significant agreement in ensuring that the physical environment influences and conditions, and in assuming that an urban environment offers many more possibilities than a rural one, by providing more business and training opportunities:
A city ... because it extends both the possibility of different businesses, which is not the same, like training, because it is not only that you can carry through this activity, but you can also train to execute other activities (I.15).
However, when talking about the environment, the interviewees not only refer to those material and formative resources but also allude to those sociocultural factors that are apprehended in the socializing process and that can be as limiting or more than the physical aspects (Ruiz, Camelo & Corduras, 2012):
The women of the northwest are staying more at home, but not only is not that they do not undertake, is that they do not opt for the sale of coupon ... and then however you go to Cartagena, and it is different, more or less equate the option ... is cultural (I.7).
At the same time, it must bear in mind the reduced mobility that many of the people in this group have. Thus, the type and degree of disability they have are going to be very conditioning, since many will renounce to move from the place where they live and, consequently, they will be forced to adapt to the possibilities that this offers them.
Obviously, the geographic scope depending on the disability you have is essential, because for example in my case you are limited to transportation, or if it was another type of disability that you are limited (I.9).
Work orientation
One aspect associated with the environment and the possibilities it offers is job orientation. It is a tool that people with disabilities may need and use to obtain information and support regarding entrepreneurship. It is a factor that is demanded, in the sense that it is crucial an advice, specific and necessary help to open the path of entrepreneurship. Especially if, as is the case, among the usual work options of people with disabilities is not self-employment. This is explained by a representative of an association of people with disabilities:
People with disabilities are arriving now; they have been in the labor market for a long time, but not entrepreneurship. It had not been focused until very recently, and they were not prepared for it, because it is clear that people with disabilities need a more personal and individualized preparation for everything they have to do in life (I.5).
Likewise, another informant demands that guidance:
We give minimal diffusion to entrepreneurship in general in Spain, both people without disabilities and with disabilities. For example, in specialized disability institutions, this information should also be encouraged and made (I.13).
Information
In this same line, and related to career guidance, the need to have information appears adequate As a preliminary step, in order to undertake it, it is necessary to know the options offered by the labor market, the aids that can be chosen and the professionals who can be consulted.
It is essential that this information comes through the appropriate channels for this type of people, but it happens with this profile of people, or it can happen with students of the last course of the race, who must be given the information they need if they want to start (I.6).
Undoubtedly, for anyone it is necessary to have this information before undertaking, but perhaps, as noted in the interviews, people with disabilities may have more difficulties accessing it, and this lack may be limiting when deciding for entrepreneurship:
The information is there, but it is complicated... that is why people become so obsessed with leaving home, and take the step and join, to at least have a first contact in which someone shows you the possibilities you have as a person with a disability (I.7).
University education
At the same time, it is indicated that not only a piece of generalized information is necessary, but also a university education, a qualified education, that reduces the adverse effects that the disability may have in the free work. That is to say, to become competitive in the labor market employing the training knowledge, and the competencies that are acquired in that degree of training.
(...) I believe that the skills of a person with a disability would have a lot to do with training, have a high level of education, no longer an average education, but even highly qualified training, in such a way that there is robust competition in a field where the disability has no negative influence, and if we do not go, I think it would be impossible. ... I do not see people with disabilities undertaking if they do not have at least some high skills through university degrees, etc... (I.14).
Business training
Many interviews insist that in order to clear the path to entrepreneurship, business training, concrete and specific training that helps to start this journey, is necessary. Training in entrepreneurship, knowledge of how a company works, the legislation that exists in this regard, is the knowledge that if they are not learned hinder this possibility, while if they are facilitated self-employment.
The training topic is very important, we have not mentioned it all the time, but to start a business you have to know how to take it, and that will have to be learned in some way or the paperwork issue and how to manage it (I.11).
I had the great fortune of having by chance this training that I tell you for entrepreneurs, and I have had much help there (I.9).
Working market
Directly associated with the physical environment is the labor market, while the supply and demand of services that exist in a specific geographical area for people with disabilities. However, the responses of the informants do not focus on the needs of the market, nor on finding a job niche that is requested, but the possibility of an undertaking is based on the personal need to work and to do it in the place where they usually reside (De Lorenzo, 2018). It is only considered as an option when the others disappear:
You are at an age when it is tough to find a job on behalf of another because you are already older, because the knowledge required is not what you have, although you have much experience that in these things are also worthwhile. However, nowadays the experience, I think, counts less. Moreover, it takes you to have to take action because you have to keep living and you do not have the conditions to be able to retire and be able to retire as an invalid (I.2).
This is an option that arises and that makes it possible to solve the problem of not having a job (I.5).
But many times you have no choice but to become autonomous, sometimes you can not find work, or you can not get a job ... You are forced by circumstances (I.11).
Offers of employed employment
The offers by others that the labor market offers and to which people can choose based on their disability are not indifferent to favor entrepreneurship. In most cases where there are options for paid work, the acceptance of these offers will be preferable to the possibility of undertaking:
There is a limited supply, and then the person gets that offer to undertake, and although it costs much work, he wants to play (I.15).
Only in those cases in which there is an emotional and personal motivation, the risk of entrepreneurship is accepted as the first possibility, a different incentive that motivates. This is indicated by one of the interviewees:
I would say that it is a further incentive, the enthusiasm, and enthusiasm that they put to access on equal terms to a position that is offered to any person, regardless of whether or not they have a disability. That is why I would say that there is an extra illusion or motivation in them or a combination of both (I.6).
Business Type
On the other hand, it is essential to point out that, in principle, the type of business that is launched could be determined, on the one hand, by the class and the degree of disability. On the other, by the geographical area, which is going to determine the economic sector in which it is decided to undertake, the target audience or the size of the company. However, once again, the answers give priority to the disability that the entrepreneur has, and not to the needs or possibilities offered by the environment. There are multiple affirmations in this sense and all in the same direction. It is the personal physical conditions that mainly determine the work activity, and external factors, usually appear in second place:
I think there are professional profiles to be able to more effectively and much easier for people with a particular disability for its peculiarity and its characteristics, without generalizing (I.4).
What will not be possible is that a deaf person puts a mobile phone company, can mount it, but can not be a telephone operator, but it can have other activities. For example, they speak very well of deaf people in the case of IT issues because as they do not hear, they concentrate very well (I.5).
Labor Recycling
Another element to take into account is the labor recycling, which comes to point out that when the assessment for disability for the activity that a person was developing is total. It is not possible to work in this activity, so it is doomed to find another profession or employment different from the one they have developed during their working life. This implies recycling both in the workplace and personal, which can cause insecurity and fear, especially in people in whom the disability has overtaken at a later age. Many people, if they wish to continue with work activity, by changing their living conditions and being considered as persons with disabilities, need to renew themselves and face a period of recycling that, on occasion, can lead to entrepreneurship:
(...) The need to reinvent myself and get ahead and it was at that moment that I launched into the venture (I.9).
(...) The health problems arise and what we were doing, that we knew very well, we can not carry it through and then we have to find another way out (I.15).
Adequate tools
At other times, what it should look for are the appropriate tools to facilitate the completion of the tasks required by a job to be performed by a person with a disability. It is necessary to use adapted computer screens, suitable computer programs, among others. Several of the interviewees state that in many cases the limitation of the person with a disability is not taken into account and the appropriate tools are not implemented in the workplace so that the limitation can be overcome, as follows:
(...) Not everything is accessible to the blind, far from it. We everything that has to do with files that go in image format, jpg., and all that, we can not read it (I.8).
However, most interviewees affirm that today, with the technical possibilities available to companies, many of the limitations to the entrepreneurship of people with disabilities could be overcome by using the appropriate tools:
(...) The impairment of physical disability is very simple, with support elements appropriate to their physical impairment, and sensory impairments ... supports and integral elements of work (I.10).
Social entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurship also appears as an alternative to traditional entrepreneurship, as another way to promote self-employment (GEM, 2012). It is argued with the possibility that this type of free activity may be more empathetic to people with certain types of disability, and, therefore, can motivate them more. It can be the opportunity to connect and show solidarity with others and, at the same time, develop a job they can find more comfortable in:
Perhaps these people can seek even a spiritual overcoming, a more communal, more cooperative, more ... more not only seek personal benefit but more community, more cooperative, and not only in the sense of money but see that other people can be happy, they can be done with work and already more, more, then I would say that they look for the essence of life and can find it in the work they do or at least help to get that. A disabled person with these ideas if he manages to do so is a great benefit for him and society (I.3).
Although clearly, it is only to present another factor that can help promote entrepreneurship in this group and open possible lines of employment for self-employed workers. In no case, this social responsibility remains in the hands of people with disabilities:
I do not know how many entrepreneurs will have a disability, but there have to be a lot of them and that they start with the best business with that approach. I tell you that I have never thought of any business for the disabled or to make life easier for people with disabilities; I have thought of businesses that can generate wealth (I.8).
Social recognition
To conclude, indicate that, in addition to the factors recorded so far, there is one that also appears among those indicated by the interviewees and that has to do with the need that human beings have to be recognized by others. The social recognition understood as the need or desire of the person with a disability, psychosocial integration effective, becomes, in this way, one of the significant factors in entrepreneurial behavior:
(...) Are people who need to be recognized, to feel useful and overcome. I think that is what motivates them the most, to feel useful, to be recognized (I.1).
(...) Who has achieved success in this may be satisfied due to he is integrating into society, because he is doing a job and can not be considered a second-hand citizen, in addition to contributing with his taxes, as an integrated person into society, etc... (I.10).
Results and conclusions
It is indisputable that social, environmental and cultural aspects affect the entrepreneurial activity, in general, and, therefore, also to people with disabilities, in particular.
Within these elements have been detected three large blocks of factors that inhibit or favor the behavior of individuals to become entrepreneurs: the socio-economic and cultural environment, the geographical scope and the aspects linked to the most personal motivations.
Concerning the socioeconomic environment, it is concluded that the very definition of disadvantaged groups is somewhat detrimental because the language used has the perverse effect of making those people and their problems invisible, and with this only the persistence of many prejudices. Therefore, those expressions should be reviewed and rejection of condescending euphemisms or words and concepts that conceal, that use generic labels, or that have a harmful or discriminatory character.
An essential factor that contributes to the creation of a social environment prone to entrepreneurship is to remove people with disabilities from ostracism, in such a way that the visibility of this group is normalized. One way to achieve this is through the public presence of people with disabilities who are enterprising and who are socially recognized (role models). These references can influence strongly on the cognitive representation of other persons with disabilities and affect their behavior to become entrepreneurs.
Financial, emotional support and affirmative action measures are other significant factors that can be favorable to entrepreneurship. Without family and institutional support for people with disabilities, it is challenging to take the step of entrepreneurship. Aid is essential economic and financial kind, sometimes linked to decisive action, but also emotional, generating confidence and trust in future entrepreneurs.
On the other hand, the geographical context, depending on the resources it can offer and its sociocultural characteristics, influences, and conditions the possibility of undertaking by people with disabilities. Since an urban environment offers many more possibilities than a rural one, It has a more excellent supply and demand for services, offers more business opportunities, guidance, information, and training, all of which are essential factors in shaping the attitude of people with disabilities to create new businesses.
Finally, some factors have been found located in an interpersonal and social plane where the individual becomes visible and is recognized. In the course of life, some individuals change their life conditions and become considered as persons with disabilities. This situation will propel them to face a recycling period, often leads them to venture. On the other hand, all people need to be recognized, and it is not a matter of narcissism, selfishness or immaturity. In the case of people with disabilities, who are needed, like others of psychosocial integration affectivity, this need for recognition is going to become one of the critical elements in entrepreneurial behavior.
In short, social and cultural factors are undoubtedly influential when undertaking for the disabled. Social, environmental and cultural factors influence each person unequally; but in the case of people with disabilities, they are transformed into elements that much condition the possibilities of creating a new company. It is precisely because of the great importance that these conditioners acquire in this social group, so in future work, it is necessary to research and advance in the design of good practices that create appropriate and favorable environments for entrepreneurship. It is essential to promote information and training in this direction and show free work as a feasible option.
