Redefining Excellence: How Neurodivergent Perspectives Challenge and Strengthen Organizations

Organizations are increasingly recognizing neurodiversity – natural variations in human neurocognition, including autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, and other neurotypes – as integral to truly inclusive workplaces. Despite this interest, significant gaps remain in our empirical understanding of how neurodivergent candidates and employees navigate organizational systems and what specific strategies organizations can use to meaningfully support different kinds of minds and create environments where all employees can thrive. Current research highlights the ongoing need to explore the lived experiences of neurodivergent employees and the broader implications for organizational practices.

Emerging studies suggest that members of neurominority groups face unique challenges related to identity, disclosure, and belonging in workplace settings. However, organizations that have implemented inclusive hiring practices, tailored management approaches, and appropriate workplace accommodations have reported improvements in employee well-being, with additional benefits for organizational productivity. Many other organizations could benefit from further exploration and practical application of how neuroaffirming workplace strategies can be standardized and integrated into existing organizational cultures. Understanding how neurodiversity interacts with team-level dynamics, individual employee experiences, and dyadic relationships (such as supervisor-employee or peer-to-peer), as well as how organizational policies influence outcomes at these levels, can inform more inclusive and responsive workplace practices.

This Research Topic aims to deepen the understanding of neuroinclusion at work. We invite diverse perspectives that explore workplace dynamics, develop practical interventions, and refine inclusive frameworks. Key objectives include examining how neurodivergent employees experience identity and belonging, evaluating the impact of support strategies, and analyzing the role of leadership development and organizational norms in creating truly inclusive spaces. Through multidisciplinary contributions, we aim to generate insights that can inform more just, human-centered, neuroaffirming, and thriving organizations.

To gather further insights in advancing organizational practices for inclusive and innovative workplaces, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

• How neurodivergent individuals navigate workplace environments at the individual, dyadic (e.g., manager-employee), and team levels
• Effective strategies and interventions for removing barriers that neurodivergent employees face, including impacts on individual well-being, and team cohesion/performance
• The effects of neuroinclusive systems, supports, and policies on individual, dyadic, and team-level outcomes (e.g., identity, belonging, engagement, interpersonal dynamics, and innovation at the team level)
• How neurodivergent perspectives enhance team dynamics, creativity, and psychological safety
• The influence of leadership, management approaches, and HR policy on neurodivergent employees and their teams
• Perspectives from neurodivergent individuals, their coworkers, managers, and HR professionals with a focus on individual, dyadic, and team experiences

We encourage submissions that foreground individual, interpersonal, and team-level outcomes, including interventions and experiences relevant to these levels, and particularly welcome work that explores how organizational policies or culture affect employees in these domains.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Registered Report
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: diversity, neurodiversity, inclusion, workplace, team dynamics

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.