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The purpose of this paper is to identify enablers and inhibitors to the adoption of mobile internet services by socioeconomically disadvantaged people: an understudied population adversely affected by digital inequality.

A qualitative study combining a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. In total, 32 socioeconomically disadvantaged people explored mobile lottery services and subsequently were asked a series of semi-structured questions about their perceptions of the technology.

Users’ attitudes toward mobile internet services were ambivalent. They experienced some advantages of smartphones (including escaping spatiotemporal constrains, fashionableness, privacy, and cost-effectiveness) and conceived of mobile internet services in terms of social advantages (including their ubiquitous nature, fitting in socially and fear of being “left behind”). However, they also experienced barriers and concerns, such as limited mobile data packages, external barriers from mobile services (including security concerns, complex online help tutorials, irrelevant pop-ups, and a lack of personalized services) and internal psychological barriers (including technophobia, self-concept, and habitus).

The findings are of limited generalizability due to the small size of the sample. However, the study has implications for understanding the acceptance of technology among socioeconomically disadvantaged people.

The study has social implications for bridging digital inequality in terms of socioeconomic status.

While previous studies have primarily focused on enablers of adopting mobile internet services by active users, this study reveals both the promise of and the barriers to the use of such services by inactive users who comprise an under-served population.

This paper aims to present a transnational research intervention that relies on the qualitative monitoring of disadvantaged people’s work integration program. In particular, the paper adopts the concept of networking and knotworking to intercept and describe the ways in which organizational payers shape knowledge in their contexts of work inclusion.

The research is based on a developmental ethnographic research to detect meaningful, situated knowledge related to the activities for work integration of disadvantaged people. Two main techniques, “at home ethnography” (Ellis and Bochner, 2000; Hansen, 2006) and participant observation (Alvesson, 2009), were used for gathering data.

The paper highlights the existing contradictions within and between the multiple activity systems. The advantages of using the activity theory’s lenses are underlined together with two main approaches related to the assumption of a networking and knotworking orientation. The findings also refer to some new paths professionals identified for their daily activity.

The paper provides a better understanding of the contemporary challenges of working, that is extremely helpful to policy makers and other practitioners, including researchers.

Many organizations seek to unleash staff potential by empowering their employees. However, mainstream empowerment programs do not reflect the unique problems faced by disadvantaged employees, namely, people with disabilities, women, and ethnic minorities. As a result, the programs fail to offer solutions which can both facilitate the resolution of the problems and enable an organization to maximize the benefits of empowerment initiatives. Shows why employers need to adopt top‐up measures for disadvantaged employees, in addition to the programs for all employees. Discusses empowerment initiatives specifically for disadvantaged employees which some employers have integrated successfully into the central management role.

This paper explores the question of whether there is an ethical business case for SMEs employing a more diverse workforce. Regan and Stanley (2003: p. v) have argued that employers should look beyond their legal obligations in respect of disadvantaged groups. What attitudes do SME employers have to such proposals, what are their current practices and how can they be supported to meet skills shortages through employing a more diverse workforce? The primary data has been derived from focus group sessions with local SMEs and interviews with the procurement managers of large employers in Southampton. Examples of good practice in employment policies of SMEs, methods of engagement, attitudes to diversity and business benefits are discussed in relation to the literature on inclusion strategies for disadvantaged groups in employment. The feasibility of using supply chains to encourage employment diversity in SMEs is evaluated. Looking to future research, the paper considers how research, evaluation, benchmarking and analysis might support the exchange of ideas, knowledge, information and experience between local organisations. In concluding it reflects on how Southampton's labour market intelligence capability and the capacity of local organisations to deliver effective support services to businesses and individuals could be built. Finally, the paper initiates discussion on the feasibility of addressing low economic activity and participation rates among women and disadvantaged individuals and communities, while increasing the supply of skills and entrepreneurs to expand the small business and social economies.

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate an example of current practices and processes that enable transformation in the workplace in a South African multi-unit hospitality and tourism business, affording previously disadvantaged people the opportunity to advance in the organization and participate in the management and ownership of that organization.

A constructivist grounded theory methodological framework is used for the collection of data, analysis and theoretical development, utilizing Charmaz’s (2006, 2011, 2014) approach in both the collection and analysis of data as well as the theoretical perspective that emerged from the research process. Intensive semi-structured recorded interviews were conducted with the owner and managers of the company. Following transcription of the interviews, multi-level data coding allowed the move from an inductive to an abductive process with theoretical sampling allowing the shift toward conceptual and theoretical development.

Study findings provide insight about the processes and practices that enabled previously disadvantaged people to move into management and ownership of a multi-unit South African hospitality and tourism business. Leapfrogging emerged as a theoretical perspective that provides interpretive understanding of atypical upward employment mobility, i.e. “human leapfrogging.”

While this study is limited to a single hospitality and tourism company in South Africa that is not necessarily typical of other South African businesses, it provides a vivid illustration of the impact that visionary leadership and a genuine desire to “level the playing field” can have on individuals, both personally and professionally, and their wider communities.

Leapfrogging theory in the context of “human leapfrogging” suggests innovative business practices for fast-tracking marginalized individuals out of poverty and provides an urgently needed theoretical perspective for this process.

To the authors’ knowledge, the leapfrogging concept has not previously been applied in the context of atypical employment progression within the corporation, nor has its impact on the corporation and the lives of the affected individuals and their communities been examined.

Purpose — This chapter provides an overview of contemporary perspectives on transport disadvantage. Definitions of transport disadvantage from the literature are brought together and differing frameworks are discussed. The chapter also examines research topics concerning forced car ownership and coping behaviours related to transport disadvantage.

Methodology — Methodology concerns the review of existing research literature.

Findings — Transport disadvantage is a complex, multidimensional construct brought about by the interaction between land use patterns, the transport system and individual circumstances. Although the majority of literature focuses on transport disadvantage imposed by not owning a car, research into ‘forced’ car ownership suggests that the high costs of owning and running a car can impose transport disadvantage through financial stress. Using alternative modes to the car, getting lifts or restricting travel and access are common coping strategies to deal with transport disadvantage.

This paper identifies ways in which community action can enhance the quality of life of older residents and reports specifically on four community gardening initiatives developed with older people living in disadvantaged communities in Manchester.

The Community Action in Later Life – Manchester Engagement (CALL_ME) project used an action research approach to engage older people. Older people and other stakeholders were actively involved in designing, planning and implementing the projects.

Drawing on a range of qualitative data, the paper provides evidence of how older people can be actively engaged in community projects, and explores the benefits of involvement including: enhanced well‐being, and increased socialisation, learning and empowerment. The challenges faced by the older people are also reported which include maintaining interest, recruiting new members and needing external support.

The paper also reports the implications for practice, discussing how gardening initiatives can involve and benefit older people and the wider community and the value of an action oriented approach in disadvantaged communities. Recommendations are made regarding ensuring sustainability of such projects by providing education and training to enhance participants' skills and build their confidence.

Whilst recognising the problems associated with living in disadvantaged communities, the CALL‐ME project takes a new approach and moves the focus to ways in which older people can become engaged in and benefit from community action, and empowered to sustain the projects they develop.

There has been much commentary on the consequences of a recession on the incomes of households. This short chapter aims to contribute to the debate about the current recession by analysing the impact of the recessions of the early 1980s and 1990s on non-employment patterns among people in the main range of working ages in Great Britain. The hypothesis is that the effects observed in earlier business cycles are likely to be repeated now. The chapter uses a series of General Household Surveys over a 32-year period, to show, first, the impact of cyclical factors on overall patterns of non-employment (including mothers and disabled people, as well as the unemployed), and second, which social groups are most affected. A key question is whether types of people who are already disadvantaged are especially sensitive to a downturn. Recent data can be used to test how far the experience of previous business cycles is being repeated in the current recession.

Young people are widely known to have poorer outcomes, social status and political representation than older adults. These disadvantages, which have come to be largely normalized in the contemporary context, can be further compounded by other factors, however, and are particularly amplified by coming from a lower social class background. An additional challenge for young people is associated with place, with youth who live in more remote and less urban areas at a higher risk of being socially excluded (Alston & Kent, 2009; Shucksmith, 2004) and/or to face complex and multiple barriers to employment and education than their urban-dwelling peers (Cartmel & Furlong, 2000). Drawing upon interviews and focus groups in a qualitative project with 16 young people and five practitioners, and using Nancy Fraser’s tripartite theory of social justice, this paper highlights the various and interlocking disadvantages experienced by working-class young people moving into and through adulthood in Clackmannanshire, mainland Scotland’s smallest council area.