Handicaps and new opportunity businesses: what do we (not) know about disabled entrepreneurs?

The process by which disabled individuals become entrepreneurs can be influenced by factors of different orders. Throughout their entrepreneurship careers and projects, disabled entrepreneurs may have to overcome multiple personal, social and political barriers. This study aims to review what we do (and do not) know about disabled entrepreneurs research to date.

The literature review focused on analyzing 42 articles from two databases, namely, Web of Science and Scopus. After the articles were selected, they were grouped into thematic clusters.

The results were categorized into four areas, namely, entrepreneurs with disabilities, self-employment as an alternative to unemployment for people with disabilities, barriers faced by disabled entrepreneurs and the importance of education, training and/or orientation for these individuals’ entrepreneurship. The research verified that, in some cases, people with disabilities resort to self-employment and become entrepreneurs to avoid unemployment. Education and training’s positive role in how this process develops is clear as they empower individuals with disabilities and enable them to raise entrepreneurial attitudes.

Based on the citation profile of articles on disabled entrepreneurs, the results contribute to a better understanding of the flow and main findings of scientific research on this topic over the past 15 years. The findings also include research tendencies that reveal the field’s emergent perspectives, which are of great importance to academics seeking to enhance entrepreneurial processes and policymakers interested in stimulating entrepreneurship education.