Neurodivergent Cognition in Marketing : From Creative Sensemaking to Competitive Advantage

Sammanfattning

This study investigates how neurodivergent cognition impacts creative marketing practice and the strategic value created by different cognitive orientations in marketing. Drawing on interviews with nine senior marketing managers who openly identify as neurodivergent, the study explores how these marketers enact their respective orientations through their work, and how this is expressed in the generation of insights, development of campaigns, and organisation’s market understanding. The findings show that neurodivergent cognition shapes how managers make sense of ambiguous and uncertain environmental information, how they form connections between apparently unrelated information, and how they create marketing insights and strategic intelligence. However, this different way of thinking does not naturally translate into value for the marketing function. These contributions need to be backed by inclusive workplaces and psychological safety. Without these factors, neurodivergent cognition is likely to be locked out of marketing processes entirely, with the potential for the distinct thinking of neurodivergent individuals to deliver competitive advantage going untapped. Drawing on neurodiversity research, theories of creativity and the Resource-Based View of the firm, this study offers an original contribution to the field of marketing by viewing cognition as a process and context-specific source of strategic market differentiation.