When ADHD Helps and Harms in Entrepreneurship: An Epidemiological Approach

Mental health and wellbeing are increasingly popular topics in entrepreneurship and management research, including studies of specific mental disorders. This paper explores how an ADHD diagnoses influences entry into entrepreneurship as well as entrepreneurial performance. Building a conceptual framework based on the “underdog entrepreneurship” approach, to test our hypotheses we construct a unique dataset covering all entrepreneurs in Denmark over a period of more than a decade. The dataset contains individual level information about medical diagnoses, prescribed medications, earnings, marital status, education and more, as well as firm level information. Running panel regressions, we find that an ADHD diagnosis has a negative influence on most aspects of entrepreneurship. Importantly, however, if those with ADHD accomplish important landmarks in their private lives (education, stable relationships) they outperform those who don’t have the condition! These novel findings have important implications for those with ADHD, health professionals and scholars alike.