Abstract
Medical advances have made it possible to diagnose many people with some degree of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These people have potentials and needs that have been neglected, despite the popularity of inclusiveness rhetoric. A neurodiverse inclusion in society and in the workforce remains overlooked. Thus, the rhetoric dissonates providing inefficient solutions. This study describes a way to empower minorities to overcome agency issues. Vencer Autismo is a Portuguese initiative that provides a positive and non-neurotypical perspective that lacks in business theory to discuss and understand ASD in a strengths-based approach. This study is an interpretive in-depth case because it seeks to understand an underdeveloped topic in business research. The case selected has already proved to be an innovative social entrepreneurial initiative with a positive social impact. Alternatives to develop the weaknesses found about ASD in business literature and inclusiveness rhetoric are drawn from the theory of entrepreneurship and innovation, emphasizing the inclusive and social perspective.
TopIntroduction
Recently, medical advances have made it possible to diagnose many people worldwide with some degree of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Individuals within ASD have potentials and needs mostly neglected (Dobusch, 2020; Whelpley et al., 2020). Despite the popularity of inclusiveness rhetoric boosted by the broad adoption of sustainable development goals since 2015, the literature relies on productive employment, participation, or engagement for economic development. The focus on jobs creation, fighting poverty, and environmental sustainability is related to ethnic, age, and gender (Schoneveld, 2020). Therefore, neurodiverse inclusion in society and the workforce has been overlooked (Whelpley et al., 2020) in ableist practices (Dobusch, 2020) although this prejudice has been discussed since 1960 (Sánchez, 2018).
Productivism is a perspective built to fit neuronormative people. Diversity is important because there are some needs that fit outstanding skills that lie outside this normal (Sánchez, 2018). These needs can be ignored until they become problematic, but would be gladly provided with an open approach that enables real inclusion. Everybody loses with these biased structures and behaviors (Dobusch, 2020). Thus, inclusiveness rhetoric is beautiful enough to harvest motivational feelings and good self-awareness (i.e., pathos). It also does well in endorsing credibility and the idea of fair judgment (i.e., ethos). However, it fails in the logic-point (i.e., logos) of proving to embrace all differences and leave nobody behind. Thus, rhetoric dissonates and provides inefficient solutions (Aristotle, 1979).
One can think of hope as waiting for the better, while others can consider hope to be the belief in doing something to improve (Freire, 1992). In order to break a paradigm, one must rely on hope resources (Eagleton, 2015). It is not only about belief, but also imagining an alternative and finding how to convey it, and how to turn it into practice until hope becomes reality. It is a utopian labor. However, because it is labor, it can progress. Therefore, imagination and action are complementary (Eagleton, 2015; Freire, 1992). And entrepreneurship is the literature about getting the job done (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000)
Indeed, ways to boost social change have been linked to entrepreneurship and innovation (Zahra et al., 2009) because of their power to create social value (Acs et al., 2011). Entrepreneurs have a greater ability to identify, evaluate, and explore opportunities even with limited resources (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000), and social entrepreneurship has the main concern of creating a positive impact on society (Mair & Martí, 2006). Therefore, exploring strategies for inclusiveness is a suitable concept. Governments encourage social entrepreneurship through legislation, develop supportive networks, and facilitate access to resources (European-Commission, 2016). They are interested in the problem-solution dialectic, which is potent for converting private resources into public services. In addition, social entrepreneurship helps expand general interest services, creating gains in efficiency and flexibility, reducing costs, and enabling innovation. It is a way to renew social structures, promote innovation in public policies (Cabral et al., 2019; European-Commission, 2016), and a way to boost inclusive growth (Aparicio et al., 2021).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Diversity: Diversity is a deliberative practice or a quality. It is about including or involving people from a range of different characteristics generally underrepresented in society. It can happen by the inclusion based on age, ancestry and ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, disability, gender, and sexual orientation.
Social Entrepreneurship: Social entrepreneurship is an essentially contested and multidimensional concept that takes the perspective of entrepreneurship as a process. It is about combining and using resources in an innovative way to pursue cost-effective opportunities. Social entrepreneurship provides stable and sustainable business models, with the explicit goal of social value creation. It must make full or partial use of factors of production (wage labor, capital and resources), in addition to including participatory and inclusive governance.
Social Value: Social value is characterized by the multiplicity and complexity of its elements. It is the stable and continuous result of social entrepreneurial initiative operation. It is what the organization produces and delivers to its customers or beneficiaries.
Rhetoric: Rhetoric is a communication style that is intended to influence people. It has three main pillars. I must endorse credibility and the idea of fair judgment (i.e. ethos) and present a logic-point (i.e. logos). In addition, it must harvest motivational feelings, whether they are positive or negative (i.e. pathos).
Inclusiveness rhetoric: It is the rhetoric boosted by sustainable development goals broad adoptions since 2015. However, it is flawed because do not include neurodivergent people. The literature relies on productive employment, participation, or engagement for economic development. The focus is on job creation, fighting poverty, and environmental sustainability. In this sense, the target audiences are related to ethnics, age, and gender. A productivist perspective was built to fit neuronormative people.
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): The ASD is usually defined in terms of a neurobiological deficit. From a clinical perspective, ASD is a diverse group of conditions, usually characterized by some degree of difficulty in social interaction and communication. People’s abilities and needs vary and can evolve or change over time. ASD is a complex issue crossed by misunderstanding about socio-divergent behaviors, sensory overloads and reactions because they are explained from a neurotypical perspective. People are not autist. This is neither a property nor what defines them. People have conditions related to ASD and these conditions can be constraints or strength depending on the instance.
Social Impact: By social impact is meant the result of the process of assessing the implications of a given initiative over the time. It is the overall effect on society.
Vencer Autismo: It is a Portuguese social Innovative and entrepreneurial initiative that has evolved by a family inclusion need. They shared their knowledge, their care and especially the lessons-learned through the process. Nowadays Vencer Autismo is a structured business and provide regular service with high social impact.
Ableism: It is the consequent prejudice from defining and projecting what is perfect, typical, and essentially human. It is analogous to other prejudices that rely on false biological beliefs as racism or sexism, and it endorses a systematic devaluation and discrimination of certain groups. Ableism structures and it is structured by the identification of citizenship based on the possession of regular capacities.
Social Innovation: Social innovation focus on social value creation above personal wealth generation and profit, by combining scarce resources to provide useful, affordable, and desirable products and services. It can happen in several degrees of newness. Therefore, the solution can be an incremental improvement, an adaptation, or a totally new proposal.