Neurodiversity in Organisations: Taking Stock and Shaping Future Research [Editorial]

Abstract

Neurodiversity has emerged as an important yet still contested area of management and organisation research. While public discourse and organisational initiatives have accelerated, academic scholarship remains dispersed across disciplines, shaped by differing assumptions, conceptualisations and levels of empirical maturity. In management and organisation studies in particular, research is only gradually gaining momentum and continues to privilege a relatively narrow range of neurodivergent experiences, limiting conceptual clarity, theoretical integration and cumulative knowledge development. Drawing on insights from debates in biodiversity and cultural diversity, we show how well-intentioned institutional interventions can produce unintended consequences when interdependence and within-group heterogeneity are overlooked. Neuroinclusion efforts are thus better understood as system interventions whose effects unfold across interconnected organisational, relational and societal contexts. Building on this premise, we identify four priorities for future research: Ontological and epistemological reorientation beyond deficit logics; more reflexive engagement with power, reciprocity and agency; stronger attention to cultural and institutional contingencies; and intersectional approaches to better understand inequality, privilege and lived experience. We also highlight the need for a more mature and reflexive research cycle, including greater use of longitudinal, multi-level and intervention-focused designs, to strengthen both conceptual development and practical relevance.