The Disability Leadership Institute has members from a wide range of backgrounds and areas of expertise.
Join us in this occasional series where DLI members share their expertise in a lunchtime briefing, followed by an open Q&A. You are welcome to ask questions.
Turning disability into a business: Entrepreneurs with disabilities’ bodily capital
Drawing on research in Belgium, this briefing explores potential implications for entrepreneurs with disability who develop a business targeting a disability specific market. The research suggests that whilst experiences of disability and impairment can be leveraged as forms of capital to identify and target niche markets, there are two potential risks: firstly leading to positioning the achievements of entrepreneurs with disabilities as extraordinary or superhuman which can reproduce distorted assumptions rather than realistic assessments of capabilities. Secondly, risk disability ghettoisation through serving a niche-market with limited possibilities for business growth.
Jannine Williams is a Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management at QUT, Brisbane. Her research interests encompass processes of organizing work; categories of social relations and constructions of difference, particularly disability and gender. She has co-edited two books, co-authored several book chapters and has published in the British Journal of Management, International Journal of Management Reviews, Studies in Higher Education, Gender, Work and Organization, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research and Disability & Society.
This session will use Google Meets with auto captions.
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A chat box function is also available.
Questions may be asked verbally or in writing.
The session will not be recorded and is only available to attend live.