DEVELOPING ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION OF DISABLED PEOPLE: INVESTIGATING THE ROLES OF ALERTNESS AND PERCEIVED HEALTH

Disabled people generally find difficulties in achieving social and professional insertion, which may provide them with incentives to create their own businesses (Davidson, 2011; Pagan, 2009). Unfortunately, there has been conspicuously little research in the entrepreneurship literature on disadvantaged people in general, and disabled people in particular. In this study, we investigate the factors affecting entrepreneurial intentions of disabled people, with a special focus on the roles of perceived health and entrepreneurial alertness.
The three primary objectives of this research are:
1) To establish how the entrepreneurial alertness of disabled people mediates the relationship between their perceived health and intentions.
2) To enhance the understanding of the factors affecting the entrepreneurial intentions of disadvantaged people, especially those suffering from disabilities.
3) To test empirically the following hypotheses :
H1. Perceived Health has a positive effect on entrepreneurial intention among disabled people.
H2. Each alertness dimension (scanning and search, association and connection and evaluation and judgment) partially mediates the effect of Perceived Health on entrepreneurial intention among disabled people.