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Background: Services for adults with intellectual disabilities in Hong Kong have a hierarchical staffing structure. Professional social workers, who performed as mid‐level employees, work with frontline support workers to deliver services to clients. Methods: This qualitative study explored social workers' experiences of working with support workers through in‐depth interviews with 13 participants. Findings: The study revealed that social workers perceived a significant variation between themselves and support workers in terms of working motivation, values and attitudes towards clients with intellectual disabilities. Despite the hierarchical relationships, social workers and support workers share the power of service decision‐making. Social workers used firm and gentle approaches to facilitate changes in practices to uphold service values. These findings were compared with Western literature on this topic, indicating similarities and differences. Conclusion: The organisations need to facilitate an effective collaboration between social workers and support workers to enhance the quality of services for adults with intellectual disabilities in Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sharing economy delivers structural impact on traditional theories of social sciences. To a certain extent, it subverts the classic issues of "invisible hand," "society must be defended," "free-rider problem" and "big government vs. small government" in traditional Western theories of economics, public administration and sociology. Under such circumstances, it is imperative to examine this theoretical innovation from the perspective of paradigm revolution. The Chinese economy(the Internet-enabled sharing economy in particular) is a revolutionary innovation of great significance in world history. China should take this "sharing" tide as an opportunity to promote digital China construction and industrial restructuring and create a new landscape for the construction of a socio-cultural system, a new national regulatory system and a modern governance system. This will help develop a China-led theoretical system of social sciences and essentially support the building of a new world order and a global discourse system.