1: Occupational and Diversity Intelligence: Unlocking Talent in the Digital Era

The term ‘occupation’ can be defined as a wide range of activities done either individually or collectively that has far-reaching implications for individuals and societies (Restall & Egan et al., 2021). While conceptualization of the term occupation can be done in relation to various multispecies (Kiepek, 2023), this chapter focusses on human occupation and its interrelation with knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSA) required for effective job performance. The term occupation is often synonymous with daily work or activities performed to provide meaning and sense to life and mainly connects to employability (De Oliveira Figueiredo et al., 2020).

The concept of intelligence has been constantly evolving. General intelligence or ‘g’ was defined by Gottfredson (1997) as the ability to deal with the complexities of everyday life. The outcome of an individual’s knowledge, competencies, experience, and behaviour (Shankar & Tewari, 2021) enables them to perform well across a wide range of cognitive tasks (Woolley et al., 2015). The notion of intelligence is not just limited to intellectual intelligence (IQ) but has several facets, as proposed by American psychologist Howard Gardner (1983), who used the theory of multiple intelligence (MI). It was Gardner’s theory of MI that has completely transformed and revolutionized the current thinking about human potential and has received remarkable attention from people in the education field (Erdem & Keklik, 2020). The theory suggests that individuals tend to deploy varied levels and combinations of autonomous intelligence to solve complex problems and create valuable products that are well-accepted in diverse cultural settings (Kornhaber, 2019). The advocates of MI suggest that intelligence is affected by several environmental, cultural, social, emotional, and personal factors (Cavas & Cavas, 2020) and hence cannot be considered in isolation. Crowne (2009) has explored the relationship between social intelligence (SQ), emotional intelligence (EQ), and cultural intelligence (CQ) as aspects of MI theory. The combined effect of this intelligence highlights the varied range of roles played by adults across multiple cultures. A more recently introduced skill (Hughes, 2016) that should be incorporated into the theory of MI is the concept of DQ. In 2016, Hughes argued that diversity needs to be integrated with IQ, EQ, and CQ to ensure recognition of workplace diversity, which aids leaders in creating more inclusive organizations.