Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues

Enter to ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND
SUSTAINABILITY CENTER page

Navigation

Membership:

Recommended tools:

Join a global community of researchers using Kudos:

Received: 2026-02-11 | Accepted: 2026-04-13 | Published: 2026-06-30

Title

Bridging the expectation gap as a mechanism of barriers in inclusive employment: a supported employment methodology for persons with disabilities

Abstract

Despite the expansion of regulatory frameworks and employment support programmes, inclusive employment of persons with disabilities remains limited. Existing research provides extensive evidence on individual and institutional barriers to employment; however, considerably less attention has been paid to the misalignment of expectations among key actors involved in the employment process. This study conceptualises the expectation gap between employers and persons with disabilities as an independent mechanism reproducing barriers to employment sustainability. The study adopts a qualitative research design and draws on in-depth interviews with persons with disabilities and employers engaged in inclusive hiring practices, including social enterprises. The findings reveal systematic differences in how employment barriers are interpreted: while persons with disabilities predominantly describe barriers through experiences of stigmatisation, unequal treatment and lack of trust, employers tend to frame the same processes in terms of organisational risks, productivity uncertainty and managerial costs. This divergence contributes to labour market segmentation and constrains transitions to sustainable employment. Based on the empirical findings, the article proposes and substantiates a supported employment methodology grounded in a dual logic of support. Unlike individual-centred approaches, the proposed methodology simultaneously addresses the needs of job seekers and employers’ risk perceptions by standardising workplace adaptation procedures, structuring support mechanisms and clarifying the roles of actors across the employment process. The study contributes to the literature by advancing the concept of the expectation gap as an analytical framework for inclusive employment and by offering a practice-oriented, reproducible approach aimed at enhancing employment sustainability for persons with disabilities.

Keywords

inclusive employment, persons with disabilities, supported employment, employers, expectation gap, employment sustainability

JEL classifications

J14

URI

http://jssidoi.org/jesi/article/6655

DOI

DOI 10.9770/s6648662393

Pages

294-305

Funding

The research was conducted with financial support from the Science Committee of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan as part of the grant funding project (Grant No. AP26194469, “Integration of Persons with Disabilities into the labour market: development of a comprehensive programme for labour adaptation”).

This is an open access issue and all published articles are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License