Serendipity—the accidental discovery of valuable ideas or solutions—is a critical driver of innovation and competitive advantage in organizations. While prior research has identified important antecedents and dimensions of serendipity, it has underexplored the range of individual and contextual factors that can enhance the frequency and impact of serendipity, overlooking the role of neurocognitive diversity in broadening the pathways through which serendipity emerges, and the conditions under which it can be realized in practice. This paper introduces the Responsive Neurodiversity Framework (RNF), a theoretical model that explains how neurodivergent individuals—those with neurocognitive variations that deviate significantly from the dominant societal standards of typical including ADHD, autism, and dyslexia—can contribute to serendipity in organizations. Drawing on serendipity and sensemaking theories, the RNF delineates mechanisms that operate at the individual level to trigger serendipity, such as leveraging hidden cognitive capabilities, and the necessary relational practices and processes to collectively realize serendipity, such as enhancing mutuality among people who have different patterns of processing, interpreting, and interacting. The framework advances serendipity scholarship by reframing it as a dynamic interplay between variation in neurocognitive processes and enabling organizational environments, emphasizing its role in creative problem-solving and opportunity recognition. Additionally, our framework contributes to neurodiversity research by offering organizational strategies that enhance mutual understanding and the realization of latent opportunities. In doing so, it also points to nonobvious ways in which neurodivergent people create value in organizations.
