An Emerging Conceptual Framework for Small Business Development and Entrepreneurship: Multiply Marginalized People...

This article presents a Multiply Marginalized People with Disabilities Small Business Incubator (M2-PWDI), an emerging conceptual model designed to train and peer-mentor entrepreneurs with disabilities (EWD) to birth small businesses, create self-employment, close wealth gaps, and help to accelerate United States (U.S.) and local economic growth by fostering new companies and creating job opportunities. A combination of Critical Disability Theory and Structural Empowerment Theory provided a useful framework to contextualize and support the model's design and intent. A set of policy and practice recommendations that could be considered by U.S. federal agencies (e.g., Small Business Administration [SBA], Rehabilitation Services Administration [RSA], Department of Commerce, Office of Disability Employment Policy [ODEP], National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research [NIDILRR]), National Institutes of Health [NIH], National Science Foundation [NSF]), state vocational rehabilitation agencies, minority-serving institutions, and researchers for collaborative implementation, evaluation, and scaling of the M2-PWDI to advance the science on business incubators and entrepreneurship among multiply marginalized EWD are presented.