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Examines the role of “sheltered employment” within the macro‐economic labour market. Assesses the extent to which sheltered employment is an end in itself forming a “road block” for people with disabilities. Goes on to suggest ways in which the system of sheltered employment might be modified to form a set of agencies with the key objective of facilitating the successful “transition” of people with disabilities from “sheltered” into “open” employment.

The sector of work integration social enterprises (WISEs) has grown considerably all across Europe during the last few decades. Unfortunately, many governments do not have a clear sight on the profile of WISEs they are supporting. The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed profile of WISEs in Flanders and identify shifts and differences within and between WISE work forms.

Data are utilized from a newly designed monitoring instrument to capture the profile of WISEs in Flanders (Belgium). This paper discusses some methodological issues in using administrative data to monitor this sector, and present a profile at the enterprise level and at the worker level. Parametric and nonparametric tests are applied to assess the significance of profile shifts and differences within this sector.

One of the dominant features of the analysis has been the identification of profound differences that can be observed between the work forms and the slighter differences that are observed within the work forms while comparing start‐ups to their mature counterparts. Therefore, it might be concluded that the policy framework on the social insertion economy as it currently exists in Flanders has a strong regulative impact on the WISEs in Flanders. This impact translates itself through differences in the profile of enterprises, as well as differences in the profile of the target group workers they employ.

A dataset combining administrative data are created to estimate enterprise and target group worker profiles in this sector. The discussion on methodological aspects involved contributes to the literature on monitoring this sector.

Studies on the work integration of persons with disabilities (PwD) and the role of social dialogue therein are scarce. The study examines how the different systems of workers’ representation and industrial relations in Slovakia and Norway facilitate PwD work integration. Taking a social ecosystem perspective, we acknowledge the role of various stakeholders and their interactions in supporting PwD work integration. The paper’s conceptual contribution lies in including social dialogue actors in this ecosystem.

Evidence was collected via desk research, 35 semi-structured in-depth interviews with 51 respondents and stakeholder workshops in 2019–2020.

The findings from Norway confirm the expected coordination of unions and employers in PwD work integration. Evidence from Slovakia shows that in decentralised industrial relations systems, institutional constraints beyond the workplace determine employers’ and worker representatives’ approaches in PwD integration. Most policy-level outcomes are contested, as integration occurs predominantly via sheltered workplaces without interest representation.

This paper identifies the primary sources of variation in the work integration of PwD. It also highlights opportunities for social partners across both situations to exercise agency and engagement to improve PwD work integration.

By integrating two streams of literature – social policy and welfare state and industrial relations – this paper examines PwD work integration from a social ecosystem perspective. Empirically, it offers novel qualitative comparative evidence on trade unions’ and employers’ roles in Slovakia and Norway.

This paper aims to contribute to prior gender-based conceptual models within organisational and management studies by incorporating an additional lens of disability. The authors present a context specific and embodied based model that we call the “two-way mirror effect” which accounts for the environmental and discursive effects of gender and disability within the workplace.

The paper reviews existing literature on gender, disability and employment and uses that literature to construct and support the concept of a two-way mirror effect.

By drawing on organisation and management-based studies, the authors have shown how previous models do not currently account for the experiences of disabled women within the workplace. Disabled workers, and especially disabled women face a myriad of unique barriers, including masculine and able-bodied employment practices (e.g. performative expectations) and exclusionary physical spaces (e.g. access, location to required facilities), that exclude them from full employment participation.

The review of existing literature and conceptual models reveal the gaps in research that academics and practitioners can build upon and the paper identifies the dominant norms that are embedded within organisational practices, which can be challenged to promote inclusion and equality.

The authors present a new intersectional-based conceptual model to fill a gap in organisational and management-based studies that accounts for the unique employment experiences of disabled employees, specifically disabled women.

The city of Prague has become a popular tourist attraction in recent years, and many people will also recall the disastrous floods that submerged part of the city in the summer of 2002. There is another story that is worth telling: the history of Fokus and its mental health work that has burgeoned since the Velvet Revolution of 1989. People at Fokus seem to have an insatiable appetite for development and are constantly learning, adapting and innovating. Here, Pavel Novák and Kateřina Lintymerová describe some of the progress that has been made over the past two years, and take time to reflect on what they have learned.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential of social enterprise as a strategy for poverty reduction for women.

A literature synthesis on the topic was conducted and patterns, linkages and gaps were examined among key themes to identify how social enterprise can potentially serve as a poverty reduction strategy for women.

The paper presents the findings in terms of specific factors contributing to women’s poverty and hypothesizes mechanisms through which social enterprises can mitigate or address these factors in practice. The paper organizes these findings in an integrative framework that highlights the need to ensure a solid policy foundation is in place before a number of key support mechanisms are enabled, which then facilitate specific types of work that can then grow in a sustainable manner.

While the mechanisms and proposed framework are based on the extant literature, additional empirical investigation is required.

Women are disproportionately burdened by poverty and the framework presented provides a very practical tool to guide the design of new or diagnosing existing social enterprises targeting poverty reduction for women.

Without a strategic approach, the risk is either perpetuating the status quo, or worse, placing those women engaged in social enterprises in a worse financial and social position.

There is limited research on the poverty reducing role of social enterprise for women and the proposed mechanisms and integrative framework presented provide a means of synthesizing our current knowledge while providing the basis for future investigations.

This chapter explores how hybrid organizations navigate the challenges (and opportunities) associated with advancing unconventional logic combinations. It draws from a study of the 180-year history of sheltered workshops in the United States. Sheltered workshops are hybrids that combine social and commercial logics to provide gainful employment to individuals with disabilities. This chapter theorizes a connection between the governance system – that is, country-based social norms and regulatory settlements – framing hybrids and the agency that allows them the discretion required to advance unconventional combinations. It introduces the term hybrid agency to describe this connection and identifies four types: upstream, midstream, downstream, and crosscurrent. Upstream agency draws from the entrepreneurial vision of charismatic founders. It allows hybrids the discretion to advance unconventional logic combinations in unsupportive times, but it also requires them to observe certain dominant cultural norms. Midstream agency draws from hybrids’ adaptation and advocacy skills and resources in periods of historical change. It allows access to resources and legitimacy for unconventional combinations. Downstream agency draws from organizational slack possible in supportive times. Slack eases tensions and tradeoffs between conflicting logics but may also fuel mission drift. Finally, crosscurrent agency also draws from hybrids’ adaptation and advocacy skills and resources. It provides hybrids with the opportunity to grapple with challenges in periods of contestation.

Anxiety disorder is a common mental health problem in people with intellectual disabilities. Although this affects their quality of life, in Spain, there are no validated tools to evaluate the symptomatology of anxiety in people with intellectual disabilities. The aim of this study is to validate the Glasgow Anxiety Scale for people with an intellectual disability (GAS-ID) in the Spanish population.

The Spanish version of the GAS-ID was produced by back translation and was administered to 120 adults with intellectual disabilities. The psychometric analyses included internal consistency using the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, inter-rater and test-retest reliability were determined using intra class correlation and Pearson correlation coefficients and, finally, factor analysis with Varimax rotation to confirm the construct validity of the questionnaire.

Cronbach’s alpha was 0.86 for the overall questionnaire. The intraclass correlation coefficient showed a good level of agreement in both test-retest (0.90) and inter-rater (0.91) analysis and the Pearson correlation showed a good significance in all dimensions and in the total scale. Varimax rotation factor analysis revealed four well-defined factors.

The GAS-ID is a feasible and reliable instrument for assessing anxiety symptoms in adults with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities, offering better diagnoses and therefore a more accurate treatment for the Spanish population with intellectual disabilities.

In common with many other agencies, Richmond Fellowship Employment and Training has been grappling with the problem of how to modernise its sheltered workshops to meet the changing employment and training needs of clients. A further complication is how to make these changes while continuing to provide services for people who are unlikely ever to cope with open employment. Anton Neumann describes how RFET is managing this difficult balancing act, and the obstacles they encountered on the way.

The issues discussed in this article will be familiar to everyone struggling to deinstitutionalise sheltered workshops. The solutions being developed — social firms, supported employment — are also well known. But can they flourish in the very special situation of the new Hong Kong? Now part of the People's Republic of China, the former colony is still sitting between East and West, capitalism and communism, and is also in the throes of a very sharp recession. Lindsay Barker, Stephen Cheung and Petrus Ng tell the story so far and then look at what the future might hold for this fledgling revolution. Bob Grove