A research on the determination of the problems faced by persons with disabilities in the entrepreneurial activities

Entrepreneurship is an alternative way to include disabled people who have problems in participation in employment in economic life. With entrepreneurial activities, disabled individuals will be able to get rid of being idle due to their limited participation in employment and be included in working life and they will also be able to contribute to national economy by providing employment opportunities for others. Considering these benefits, it is clear that the entrepreneurship rates of individuals with disabilities should be increased. At this point, it becomes very important to determine and descript the problems faced by disabled persons in establishing and running their own businesses in order to increase the rate of entrepreneurial activities. However, it seems that the issue of disabled entrepreneurship is not given importance enough in the national academic literature. There are few studies in the literature to define the challenges faced by entrepreneurs with disabilities, and none of the studies are empirical. Based on this gap in the literature, the goal of this study is to define and descript the problems faced by disabled persons in their entrepreneurial activities. For this aim, this study was designed as a descriptive study that provides a detailed description of the problems faced by persons with disabilities in their entrepreneurial activities. İnterviews were used in collection of data. Purposeful Sampling Technique was adopted to determine the participants to be interviewed. In this context, disabled people who have a disability report of 40% or more and who are or have been involved in entrepreneurial activities are included in the sample. As categories and indicators are effective in data analysis, Guiding Content Analysis was used. In the research, it is seen that the challenges faced by disabled persons in their entrepreneurial activities differ greatly from the literature. Out of the twenty (20) problems determined by the searcher with the literature research, only eight (8) results (Physical problems due to disability, discriminatory attitudes towards the disabled, lack of government support, problems with physical access, etc.) were similar with the literature, and twelve (12) were (lack of self-confidence, lack of family/friend support, lack of guidance/expertise support, inability to establish social network/business connection etc.) different from the literature. Additionally, in the research, two (2) problems (legal problems and inability to manage/supervise employees) that were not included in the literature were emerged. İn the analyzes, it was also seen that factors such as "type of disability, not being congenitally disabled, having previous work experience" have an impact on the problems faced by individuals with disabilities in their entrepreneurial activities.