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• The Development & Diffusion of Social Firms
• How Social Firms Can Succeed
  
• Advantages of Social Firms

Social Firms or Affirmative Businesses

Another vocational model which has gained strength in recent decades is the social firm. Social firms, or affirmative business as they are known in North America, are businesses created with a dual mission – to employ people with disabilities and to provide a needed product or service. The model was developed for people with psychiatric disabilities in northern Italy in the 1970s and, by diffusion, has gained prominence throughout Europe and Australasia. Independent of European influence, affirmative businesses have also developed in North America (especially Canada) and East Asia. Over a third of employees in social firms are people with a disability or labor-market disadvantage. Every worker is paid a fair market wage, accommodations are made for disabled workers’ needs, and all employees have the same rights and obligations. Hard to achieve, but important nevertheless, the business must operate eventually as a viable concern, free of subsidy. Advantages of the social-firm model include opportunities for empowerment and the development of a feeling of community in the workplace.