Wen, Ma2025-09-172025-09-172025-08-262025-08-262025-09-17http://hdl.handle.net/1993/39390Chapter 1: This research explores how neurodevelopmental conditions, particularly ADHD, autism, and dyslexia, influence entrepreneurial outcomes and creativity. We perform a comprehensive systematic review at the intersection of neurodiversity and entrepreneurship that includes 105 empirical studies from 2014-2024. Our analysis from the review supports a dueling model of both challenges and benefits of neurodiversity’s relationship to entrepreneurship. We further extend this finding to propose a more complete model to this relationship that includes coping and comorbidity to capture the relationship between neural diversity and entrepreneurship. Future research and remaining gaps in the literature are also discussed. Chapter 2: In this chapter, I have drawn from conservation of resources theory literature and entrepreneurial emancipation and bricolage to frame and develop the research question: How does entrepreneuring serve as a therapeutic mechanism for trauma survivors by facilitating identity reconstruction, psychological healing, and post-traumatic growth? This question is further explored through three sub-questions in the process of analyzing Reddit posts and cases: (1) How do trauma survivors on grassroots platforms like Reddit articulate their motivations for entering entrepreneurship, and what psychological needs do these narratives reflect? (2) What recurring themes and coping mechanisms emerge across the process of entrepreneurship as a pathway for healing? Moreover, (3) how are these mechanisms further elaborated, deepened, or reframed in curated case studies of trauma-experienced / mental problems-experienced) entrepreneurs? To bridge this gap and build a more grounded understanding, this study adopts a two-stage qualitative design. The first stage explores publicly shared experiences on Reddit, where trauma survivors candidly discuss their entrepreneurial journeys. In the second stage, I analyzed four cases to further complete the codebook and form the “entrepreneuring as therapy” model to understand the mechanism.engEntrepreneurshipNeurodiversityTrauma