Project Leadership and Society 2 (2021) 100026

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Project Leadership and Society

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Empirical Research

Digital intelligence: A must-have for project managers

Carl Marnewick a, *, Annlizé Marnewick b
a
University of Johannesburg, Applied Information Systems, South Africa
b
University of Johannesburg, Postgraduate School of Engineering Management, South Africa

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) requires a fundamental change in the way we live, work and relate to one
Digital intelligence another. It requires a new type of intelligence to deal with this fundamental change. This new type of intelligence
Competencies requires new competencies. Yet, it is not crystal clear what these new competencies should be, especially those
Project management
relating to the discipline of project management. Project leaders are required to implement and manage 4IR-
Fourth industrial revolution
related projects but do not necessarily have the required competencies. This is especially the case in a devel­
South Africa
Q-methodology oping country such as South Africa. The study explored the digital competencies that are deemed important by
project managers in managing projects in the digital economy. Q-methodology was used to determine potential
perspectives, and three confirming perspectives and one emergent perspective were identified. The main
competence deemed important is online communication and collaboration, whereas cybersecurity is deemed un­
important. This study is the first of its kind and provides insight into the digital intelligence of project leaders. It
contributes to the current debate around the future digital competencies and skills that are required. It also
provides guidelines for organisations on how to plan and structure training and to upskill their current project
leaders. A concerted effort needs to be in place to upskill project leaders. It cannot be left to fate.

1. Introduction and the International Project Management Association (International

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is bringing change into
business environments. This revolution is a natural evolution from In­
dustry 4.0 where the focus is on the integration of technology into the
organisation as well as across organisations towards a digital business
environment (Piccarozzi et al., 2018). The future of project management
during this revolution is not yet known, but as per (Seymour and Hus­
sein, 2014), project managers must be adaptable to constant change,
uncertainty and disruptions in the twenty-first century. The speed of the
technology changes is creating a gap between existing capabilities and
evolving requirements of employees’ roles (Whysall et al., 2019). These
changing requirements in competences and skills are not yet well un­
derstood (Piccarozzi et al., 2018). However, a response is required to
this change even though the end is not yet fully known.
The same applies to the changing needs of project managers’ com­
petencies and skills. Project managers need to continuously reskill
themselves within this evolving environment as they need to evolve with
the organisation and be the ones who lead and implement technology-
related projects. Current skills and competencies as prescribed by the
Project Management Institute (Project Management Institute, 2017a)
Project Management Association, 2015) do not address this crucial and
necessary evolution in skills and competencies.
This raises the question of what skills and competencies project
managers need to acquire and master to manage future projects.
Söderlund and Maylor (2012) highlight five challenges facing project
management scholarship. One of these challenges is the hard and soft
skills of project managers and there is a need to integrate these skills of a
project manager. Walker and Lloyd-Walker (2019) investigated the
2030 workplace in relation to project management and have con­
ceptualised the core knowledge, skills, attributes and experiences proj­
ect managers will need within the technical (hard) and relational (soft)
space. They point out that technology skills are required. Schuh, Anderl
(Schuh et al., 2017) are of the opinion that project managers should
possess a digital capability, which they define as the basic requirements
for information-based working and learning. In the same vein (Marne­
wick and Marnewick, 2020), identify competencies required to manage
project teams within the 4IR. One of these is digital literacy. Mandičák,
Mésároš (Mandičák et al., 2020) identify the competencies for project
managers in construction because of the changing digital requirements.
This research highlights that digital competencies are not only about

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: cmarnewick@uj.ac.za (C. Marnewick), amarnewick@uj.ac.za (A. Marnewick).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plas.2021.100026
Received 6 May 2021; Received in revised form 7 September 2021; Accepted 8 September 2021
Available online 11 September 2021
2666-7215/© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
C. Marnewick and A. Marnewick
Table 1
Impact of industrial revolutions on project management.
Revolution Period Technical achievements (Prisecaru, 2016;
Campa, 2020)
1st 1765–1850 Steam engine, mechanization
2nd 1870–1950 Internal combustion engine
3rd 1969–2000 Computer, robots, automation, laser, internet,
mobile phones
4th 2000 and Internet of Things, cyber systems, smart industry,
beyond advance robotics, artificial intelligence
using technology, but focus on the cognitive skill required in the creative
application of technology to become digital citizens. This is in line with
the DQ Institute emphasising the importance of employees’ digital in­
telligence as a crucial competence (Park, 2019). Limited research, to our
knowledge, has been conducted on the needs of digital intelligence
competency within the project management discipline.
This study aimed to (i) identify the relevant digital intelligence
competencies of project managers to respond to the change brought
about by the 4IR and (ii) provide a project manager’s perspective of
what digital intelligence competencies they deem important to enable
them to respond to the changes that are currently taking place as the 4IR
unfolds.
The article follows a traditional flow with the literature review
investigating digital intelligence in relation to digital skills and com­
petencies. In the next section, the research methodology that was fol­
lowed is described, with section 4 dealing with the results of the
qualitative study. The last section concludes the article and provides
context and avenues for further research.
2. Literature review
Humankind has experienced three Industrial Revolutions and is
currently at the beginning of the fourth. Each of these four Industrial
Revolutions has demanded certain skills and competencies from
humans, who had to evolve their skills and competencies to stay relevant
in a demanding working environment. The First Industrial Revolution
was brought about by mechanization and physical skills were important
(Drath and Horch, 2014). The Second Industrial Revolution involved
cognitive skills as the focus was on mass production (Mokyr, 1998). The
labour force had to evolve from using physical skills to applying
cognitive skills (Liu and Grusky, 2013). The Third Industrial Revolution
was about the automation of production and (Maqbool et al., 2017) as
well as (Müller and Turner, 2010) infer that the required skills were soft
skills supported by emotional intelligence (EQ). The current revolution,
the fourth, is about digital skills that need to be mastered (Park, 2019).
The focus of the 4IR is on integrating various technologies that enable
ecosystems to function in an intelligent and autonomous way, decen­
tralising factories and integrating product–services (Santos et al., 2017).
The required skills have evolved from physical to digital skills over the
last couple of centuries. At this point in time, the need for physical skills
is diminishing, but the labour force is required to have cognitive, soft
and digital skills. The requirement of digital skills will become more
important as we move more into the 4IR.
This is also relevant in the project management discipline. Project
management had its origins in the construction and defence disciplines
(Shenhar and Dvir, 2004). Until the 1980s, project management was
found in the engineering, defence and IT disciplines, after which it
became much more widely accepted within management and other
Project Leadership and Society 2 (2021) 100026
Modern project management (Seymour and Hussein, 2014; Kwak et al., 2003; Morris et al.,
2011)
• Project management started as an administrative function of scheduling and coordinating to
shorten delivery times by parallel planning.
• Advances in technology increased the utilization of tools in project management (PERT,
WBS).
• Management sciences were introduced as projects grew in complexity. However, the focus
was still on administrative function of scheduling and coordinating and excluded functions
such as project definition, quality assurances and success criteria.
• Enterprise-wide project management developed as technology advanced and were integrated
across the enterprise. Professional bodies, competency frameworks, standards and
methodologies emerged.
• Project management developed into a complex discipline requiring project managers that can
manage complexity, coordinate social interaction among people, create value for business,
operated across disciplines and continuously learn and reflect.
disciplines (Turner et al., 2013). The four industrial revolutions are
driven by technical achievements that in-turn, had an impact on project
management (Table 1).
Project management became an enterprise-wide discipline with the
introduction of technology such as personal computers and project
management software. This entails that project managers had to master
various competencies, knowledge and the application of emotional in­
telligence (EQ) (Müller and Turner, 2010). With the current industrial
revolution, the technology advancement is even further accelerated, and
the demands on project management and the project manager per se,
will be escalating. It can be deduced that digital competencies will play a
major role in the ability of project managers in the fourth industrial
revolution.
During the evolution of project management, the importance of the
project manager’s competence has been highlighted and various com­
petency frameworks have been developed. Competency is not just
passing a test, or acquiring certification (Morris et al., 2011). Compe­
tency involves more than knowledge – it includes skills and behaviours
and is developed with experience. Although the required competencies
of a project manager vary depending on the context of the project, a
range of skills across social and technical dimensions is needed (Morris
et al., 2011). Looking ahead to how competency requirements could
change, research done by (Project Management Institute, 2018; Project
Management Instit, 2019) indicates that artificial intelligence (AI) and
data science are changing the way that projects are managed. This itself
implies that the project management discipline and project managers
need to evolve their skills and competencies to survive the 4IR.
There are currently two important competency standards, i.e. the
PMI’s Project Manager Competency Development Framework (Project
Management Institute, 2017a) and the Individual Competence Baseline
for Project, Programme and Portfolio Management of the International
Project Management Association (IPMA) (International Project Man­
agement Association, 2015). The focus of the PMI is on three compe­
tency dimensions, i.e. knowledge, performance and personal. This
framework does not include any digital competencies. The PMI
acknowledge that project leaders will need digital skills to keep pace
with technology (Insights, 2018). It is not evident what these digital
skills should be or how competence will be measured. The focus of the
IPMA is on three competence areas, i.e. people, practice and perspective.
As with the PMI, no reference is made to digital skills and competencies.
The failure of these standards to incorporate digital competencies
highlights a gap and the potential for research in this area.
2.1. Required competencies for future work
Competency is the ability or skill that can be acquired and developed
through work experience, life experience, study, or training (Wang and
Ha-Brookshire, 2018). The World Economic Forum (World Economic
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C. Marnewick and A. Marnewick Project Leadership and Society 2 (2021) 100026

Forum, 2018), (World Economic Forum, 2020) analysed the changes
within the top fifteen competencies as the fourth industrial revolution
advances. The change in competencies between 2018 and 2020 focuses
on building digital competencies. This can be observed by the added
new skill (Technology use, monitor and control) that is ranked as the 7th
important competency in 2020. These future workforce competencies
were used as the baseline for a comparison of future workforce com­
petencies as presented in Table 2. The competencies of the WEF are
applicable to all workforces, whereas the competencies identified by
(Walker and Lloyd-Walker, 2019) and (Marnewick and Marnewick,
2020) focus on future project management competencies.
The comparison highlights various similarities and overlaps. The
various competencies listed in Table 2 further highlight the importance
of digital skills. Hirsch-Kreinsen, Kubach (Hirsch-Kreinsen et al., 2019)
emphasise that skills development and ongoing training are key levers
for making a social and economic success of digital transformation. For
project managers to evolve with the 4IR, they need to continuously
improve and adapt new skills, especially digital skills (Project Man­
agement Instit, 2019). They do caution that project managers need to
safeguard their cognitive and soft skills and avoid the deskilling of these
skills. Areas where project managers will begin to feel an impact are
individual self-concept, teaching and learning practices, upskilling and
the authority of the organisation (Adams, 2004). Project managers in the
future will be expected to possess the digital ability and skills, or com­
petency, to efficiently deal with digital resources and environments
(Wang and Ha-Brookshire, 2018). Fig. 1 provides a high-level overview
of how skillsets and the required intelligence have evolved over the four
Industrial Revolutions.
The primary skillset has evolved from physical to digital skills, as the
required intelligence for the 4IR is digital intelligence rather than
emotional quotients (EQ) or intelligence quotients (IQ). For the project
managers to master the required digital skills and become competent
digital project managers, they need to have some level of digital
intelligence.
2.2. Digital intelligence
Intelligence is “the ability to solve problems, or fashion products, that are
valued in one or more cultural or community settings” (Gardner, 1987).
Gardner and Hatch (1989) identify seven intelligences that can be
covered by IQ and EQ. IQ covers the intelligences of
logical-mathematical, linguistic, musical, spatial and
bodily-kinaesthetic. Interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences are
clustered under EQ. In simple terms, digital intelligence is when in­
dividuals have the ability to use knowledge in such a way that they can
interact in a meaningful and successful way with their environment
(Adams, 2004). This ‘ability’ relates to the skills and competencies
required to solve problems within the digital ecosystem. Earlier re­
searchers on the notion of intelligence could not foresee the digital
world that we are living and operating in, hence the introduction of
digital intelligence.
The DQ Institute defines the digital intelligence quotient (DQ) as “a
comprehensive set of digital competencies rooted in universal moral values for
individuals to use, control, and create technology to advance humanity”
(Park, 2019). This definition highlights two aspects. The first is that a
person (the project manager) should have digital skills and compe­
tencies that are rooted in moral values. The second aspect is that tech­
nology should be used to advance humanity and not to oppress or harm
individuals or communities. Na-Nan, Roopleam (Na-Nan et al., 2019)
define digital competencies as technical, cognitive and socio-emotional
competencies which enable an individual to face challenges and adjust
to the digital era. The emphasis is not just on technology, but on how
individuals use their cognitive and socio-emotional competencies to deal
with the consequences and impact of technology. This is in line with
(Hirsch-Kreinsen et al., 2019) stating that cognitive and soft skills are
still important. DQ, according to (Mithas and McFarlin, 2017), involves
the synchronisation of business and IT strategies, the governance of IT
and ultimately the management of IT projects and enterprise systems.
They believe that understanding and utilising the power of IT could be to
the advantage of project managers. This advantage can only be har­
nessed if the project manager has high digital intelligence. Cismaru,
Gazzola (Cismaru et al., 2018) conceptualise digital intelligence as “the
ability to understand and relevantly use digital/online concepts and solve
technological, informational and communicational online problems”. This
definition differs from the other definitions as it entails only on online
concepts and problem-solving. It overlooks the fact that technology can
also be used in an offline mode and that there might be communication
between human and machine (Marnewick and Marnewick, 2020). DQ

Table 2
Comparison of future workforce competencies.
Future workforce competencies (World World Economic World Economic Walker and Lloyd-Walker (2019) Marnewick and Marnewick (2020)
Economic Forum, 2018) Forum (2018) Forum (2020)

Analytical thinking and innovation
Active learning and learning strategies
Complex problem-solving
Critical thinking and analysis
Creativity, originality and initiative
Leadership and social influence
Technology use, monitor and control
Technology design and programming
Resilience, stress tolerant and flexible
Reasoning, problem-solving and ideation
Emotional intelligence
Troubleshooting and user experience
Service orientation
Systems analysis and evaluation
Persuasion and negotiation
✓ 1 • Clear strategic and holistic • Sense-making (personal)
thinking (relational skill) • Novel and adaptive thinking (personal)
• Innovation-seeking (relational
skill)
✓ 2
✓ 3 • Unstructured problem-solving (personal)
✓ 4 • Divergent and convergent • Critical thinking (personal)
thinking (relational skill)
✓ 5 • Design mindset/creativity (personal)
✓ 6 • Adaptive leader follower • Leadership and project management
(relational skill) (social)
• Reflective and empathic
(relational skill)
7 • New media/digital literacy
✓ 8 • Technology orchestration
(technical skill)
9 • Resilience and adaptability
✓ 10
✓ 11 • Emotional intelligence (relational • Emotional intelligence (social)
skill) • Social intelligence (social)
12
13
✓ 14 • Systems thinking (technical skill) • Computational thinking/holistic system
comprehension (personal)
15

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C. Marnewick and A. Marnewick Project Leadership and Society 2 (2021) 100026

Fig. 1. Evolvement of skills across Industrial Revolutions (adapted from Park (2019)).

can be measured at two distinct levels, i.e. organisational level (Mithas

Table 3
and McFarlin, 2017) and individual level (Park, 2019; Na-Nan et al.,
Areas of digital intelligence (Park, 2019; IEEE, 2021).
2019).
DQ area Description Guiding principle

2.2.1. Organisational DQ Digital identity The ability to build a wholesome Respect for oneself
For organisations to improve their DQ, four building blocks should online and offline identity
Digital use The ability to use technology in a Respect for time and
be in place: (i) a strategy that is available and applicable to the orga­
balanced, healthy and civic way the environment
nisation, (ii) investing at scale in relevant technologies, (iii) a change in Digital safety The ability to understand, mitigate Respect for life
culture to adapt technologies and (iv) organisational structures aligned and manage various cyber-risks
with the chosen digital strategies (Catlin et al., 2015). Bughin, Catlin through safe, responsible, and
(Bughin et al., 2017) add another building block: the capabilities of the ethical use of technology
Digital security The ability to detect, avoid and Respect for property
organisation itself to implement and deliver digital solutions. manage different levels of cyber-
threats to protect data, devices,
2.2.2. Individual DQ networks and systems
Project managers’ interaction with digital technologies for managing Digital emotional The ability to recognise, navigate Respect for others
intelligence and express emotions in one’s digital
projects and communication implies that their pattern for intellectual
intra- and inter-personal
development has been altered (Adams, 2004). No one is immune to the interactions
impact of technology and the effect it has on our behaviour. To deal with Digital The ability to communicate and Respect for
this new intellectual development, project managers need to rely on communication collaborate with others using reputation and
their digital intelligence. technology relationships
Digital literacy The ability to find, read, evaluate, Respect for
Table 3 highlights the eight digital intelligence areas as defined by synthesise, create, adapt and share knowledge
the DQ Institute, which have also been converted to a standard for information, media and technology
digital competencies (IEEE, 2021). These digital intelligence areas Digital rights The ability to understand and Respect for rights
formed the basis of this research. Although another framework exists uphold human rights and legal
rights when using technology
(Carretero et al., 2017), the digital intelligence areas as defined by the
DQ Institute were used as they are more comprehensive and in­
corporates emotional intelligence (Park, 2019; IEEE, 2021). managers from a South African perspective.
Fig. 2 provides a summary of the requirements for a digitally intel­
ligent project manager. The organisation itself, within which the project 3. Research methodology
manager operates, should be digitally intelligent. The five building
blocks must be in place as this enables the project manager to focus on A qualitative approach was followed to answer the second research
the eight digital intelligence areas. If all is in place, then organisations question, i.e. to determine the digital intelligence competencies deemed
should have digitally intelligent project managers that should be able to important by project managers. A qualitative approach was deemed
implement and manage 4IR-related projects. sufficient as it had the potential to provide insight into a complex issue
For this article, only the eight digital intelligence areas were such as digital intelligence. Purposive sampling was used as the partic­
investigated. ipants were all project managers attending a national project manage­
The next section deals with the methodology that was followed to ment conference in South Africa. The participants included both sexes
determine the digital competencies deemed important by project

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C. Marnewick and A. Marnewick
Fig. 2. Building block for a digitally intelligent project manager.
and ranged from young and inexperienced to mature and experienced
project managers.
This section covers Q-methodology (QM) and its methods of analysis
as it was used to determine which DQ competencies are deemed
important for a digitally intelligent project manager. QM is mainly a
qualitative research technique that takes account of mathematical and
other structured foundations (Parry, 2019). In brief, a QM study is
conducted by taking seven steps:
1. The concourse: Various statements and opinions are derived from
literature. In this study, the 24 competencies as per Park (2019) and
the IEEE (2021) formed the foundation of the concourse.
2. Select Q-sample: The statements in the concourse should be reduced
by selecting representative statements through the removal of
statements with duplicate meaning or combining others. The number
of statements in the Q-sample should preferably be kept between 16
and 60 (Ramlo and Newman, 2011; McKeown and Thomas, 2013).
Since there were no statements with a duplicate meaning or that
could be combined, the 24 DQ competencies were also the state­
ments. In this study, the concourse and the Q-sample is the same.
3. Condition of instruction: The participants were requested to reflect on
how important each of the 24 statements was. This was done in
groups of six to eight people and each group submitted one sort after
they reached consensus among themselves about the importance of
each statement. It would have been ideal to have everyone complete
a sort, but it was not possible in this scenario. It is believed that the
sort submitted by the group, is a consensus of everyone’s opinion and
that it did not influence the outcome of the study.
4. Sorting grid: A sorting grid is a matrix of sorts with as many spaces as
there are statements. The number of statements determines the size
and shape. In this study, − 3 would represent the negative side of the
condition of instruction and +3 the positive (Coogan and Herrington,
2011). The resultant sorting grid takes this shape as depicted in
Fig. 4.
5. P-sample: The P-sample refers to the individuals selected to partici­
pate in the sorting activity. The number of participants in the P-
sample is limited according to the number of statements in the Q-
sample. Given the 24 statements in this Q-sample, this study could
accommodate no fewer than 6 participants (Coogan and Herrington,
2011; Brown and Perkins, 2019). Participants were individuals who
were actively engaged in the project management discipline,
attending a national project management conference in South Africa.
They formed groups of six to eight people and each group was
perceived as a participant. This study engaged 11 participants.
5
Project Leadership and Society 2 (2021) 100026
6. Sorting: Each participant in the P-sample sorts each statement into
three piles ranging from most important to less important. This as­
sists the participant in ranking the statements on the sorting grid and
any comments provided by the participants are taken note of. The
sorting was done manually (Fig. 3).
7. Inverted factor analysis: The data is collated by specialised Q-sort
software (Ken-Q Analysis1) allowing for factors to be extracted. Four
factors were identified based on its cumulative variance and eigen­
values. The four factors have a cumulative variance of 70% and the
eigenvalue of each factor was above one. Inverted factor analysis is
conducted to uncover underlying variables in patterns termed “social
perspectives”. The validity of each social perspective is determined
by the number of participants who are loaded on the corresponding
factor. A minimum of three participants need to be loaded on a factor
for it to be considered a valid social perspective. Should fewer than
three participants be loaded onto a factor, this factor can be viewed
as an emergent perspective and should be interpreted with more
caution than what is normally warranted. As this study engaged 11
participants, the maximum number of social perspectives that could
potentially be justified was four (Ramlo, 2015). This study utilised
principal component analysis (PCA) and Varimax extraction to
maximise the difference between the exposed factors. Analysis was
conducted to determine which variables were loaded onto which
factors and to determine which factors were social perspectives.
Correlations, Q-sort values (QV) and Z-scores were provided to
determine the relationship between variables and social perspec­
tives. A QV is an aggregate indication of which column a variable is
sorted into in a specific social perspective. A Z-score is a standardised
metric that allows for comparison between variables in this meth­
odology (Brown and Perkins, 2019).
4. Results and analysis
The results obtained from the sorting activities are presented in this
section. Eight initial factors were originally extracted but a maximum of
four factors could potentially be validated as social perspectives. As
such, only these are examined. These four factors cumulatively
explained 70% of the variance observed. These were then rotated using
the Varimax method to produce the factor loadings as per Fig. 4.
Factors 1, 2 and 3 were supported by three sorts and can be perceived
as social perspectives. Factor 4 was supported by only two sorts and is
considered as an emergent perspective. Each social perspective has a
1
https://shawnbanasick.github.io/ken-q-analysis/.
C. Marnewick and A. Marnewick Project Leadership and Society 2 (2021) 100026

Fig. 3. Example of completed sorting grid.

Fig. 4. Perceived importance factor loadings.

composite reliability exceeding 1, which is a measure of internal con­
sistency (Bacon et al., 1995; Peterson and Kim, 2013). This implies that
all three social perspectives were valid and that factor 4 (emergent)
could be considered.
The Z-scores for the competencies in each perspective were exam­
ined. The Z-scores for the four perspectives are presented in Appendix 1.
High Z-scores indicate that these competencies were appraised more
positively on the sorting grid than others. The opposite is true for low Z-
scores.
In summary, the four perspectives seem to highlight the following
aspects as important:

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C. Marnewick and A. Marnewick Project Leadership and Society 2 (2021) 100026

• Social perspective 1 perceives the ability to manage online presence
as important.
• Social perspective 2 emphasises the importance of discretion
regarding privacy and feelings within a digital environment.
• Social perspective 3 focuses on the importance of communicating
effectively online.
• Emergent perspective 4 highlights the importance of creating a
healthy online presence.
To interpret each perspective, it was also necessary to determine the
distinguishing statements of each perspective, that is, what constitutes
the maximum difference between the perspectives to make them unique
from one another. Some overlap exists to various degrees between all
four perspectives. It was therefore important to examine the statements
that define each perspective to truly appreciate what separates one from
the others. The fact that certain perspectives may have consensus on
where certain statements are sorted between them required this analysis
to observe the unique characteristics of each social perspective. Table 4
sheds light on the appearance of a statement within the four factors. This
table presents the Q-values for each distinguishing statement. The Q-
value indicates in which column a statement would be sorted for a given
perspective. These are the set of statements that render a perspective
unique from the others and what the nature of that perspective is.
Given the results in Appendix 1 and Table 4, the four perspectives
can be characterised by the following descriptions:
2. Social perspective 2 is unique in the sense that it focuses on the value
system. This value system is characterised by the ability to manage
intellectual property, and the awareness of one’s own and others’
feelings and needs in an online environment. The distinguished
statements of this perspective are Intellectual Property Rights Man­
agement, Self-Awareness and Management and Media and Information
Literacy.
3. Social perspective 3 has a strong communication undertone. This
perspective focuses on the meaningful presentation of data as well as
effective communication to exchange ideas and opinions. This is
done through the effective use of technology as a communication
medium. The distinguished statements of this perspective are
Participatory Rights Management and Organisational Cyber Security
Management.
4. Emergent perspective 4 focuses on the online identity, specifically
building and managing a healthy digital identity. This is accom­
plished by being a competent changemaker that supports a sound
value system. The distinguished statements of this perspective are
Digital Citizenship Identity and Self-Awareness and Management.
The next section puts the results into perspective as the discussion
focuses on how the results should be interpreted in relation to the
research problem.
5. Discussion

1. Social perspective 1 is characterised by using technology to
communicate and collaborate while maintaining online relation­
ships. Online relationships are maintained through the discretional
handling of personal information. The ability to manage one’s life
both online and offline is also a characteristic of this perspective. It
must be noted that various statements within this perspective are not
unique and occur in the other three perspectives as well. The
distinguished statements of this perspective are Personal Cyber Se­
curity Management and Commercial and Community Cyber-Risk
Management.
Two research questions were posed. The first research question
related to the digital competencies that are required by project managers
to manage 4IR-related projects. Various authors have identified com­
petencies that will be required in the future. It is evident that intelli­
gence plays a role in mastering future competencies, with emotional and
social intelligence highlighted as important. Park (2019) adds an addi­
tional intelligence, i.e. digital intelligence or DQ. This speaks to Santos,
Mehrsai (Santos et al., 2017) that digital competencies are becoming
increasingly important as we move into the 4IR. Digital intelligence can
be measured at two levels, i.e. organisational and individual level.
Organisational digital intelligence forms the foundation for a project

Table 4
Distinguishing statements.
Threshold Q Sort Value State. No. Z-Score Statement

Factor 1 P < 0.05 1 4 0.87 Personal Cyber Security Management

P < 0.05 1 19 0.55 Commercial and Community Cyber-Risk Management
P < 0.2 − 1 24 0.37 Participatory Rights Management
P < 0.005 − 1 22 − 0.61 Public and Mass Communication
P < 0.01 − 3 13 − 1.74 Self-Awareness and Management
P < 0.01 − 3 7 − 2.03 Media and Information Literacy
Factor 2 P < 0.0005 3 16 1.73 Intellectual Property Rights Management
P < 0.05 2 13 0.64 Self-Awareness and Management
P < 0.005 1 7 0.45 Media and Information Literacy
P < 0.05 0 24 0.37 Participatory Rights Management
P < 0.05 − 2 1 − 0.88 Digital Citizenship Identity
P < 0.0001 − 3 23 − 2.1 Data and AI Literacy
Factor 3 P < 0.05 3 24 1.31 Participatory Rights Management
P < 0.0001 2 20 1.13 Organisational Cyber Security Management
P < 0.01 0 16 0.36 Intellectual Property Rights Management
P < 0.05 0 8 − 0.19 Privacy Management
P < 0.01 − 1 13 − 0.67 Self-Awareness and Management
P < 0.05 − 2 9 − 1.05 Digital Co-creator Identity
P < 0.05 − 3 10 − 1.47 Healthy Use of Technology
Factor 4 P < 0.0005 3 1 1.72 Digital Citizenship Identity
P < 0.05 3 13 1.61 Self-Awareness and Management
P < 0.05 − 2 12 − 1.05 Network Security Management
P < 0.005 − 3 8 − 1.44 Privacy Management

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C. Marnewick and A. Marnewick Project Leadership and Society 2 (2021) 100026

Table 5
Top competencies based on z-scores.
Competency Description Z-Score
(Total)

Online Communication and
Collaboration
Digital Empathy
Public and Mass Communication
Balanced Use of Technology
Data and AI Literacy
Content Cyber-Risk Management
Digital Changemaker Identity
Digital Citizenship Identity
The ability to use technology effectively to communicate and collaborate collectively, including at a distance. 6.01
The ability to be aware of, be sensitive to, and be supportive of one’s own and other’s feelings, needs and concerns online. 2.65
The ability to communicate with an online audience effectively to exchange messages, ideas, and opinions reflecting wider 2.15
business or societal discourses.
The ability to manage one’s life both online and offline in a balanced way by exercising self-control to manage screen time, 2.04
multitasking, and one’s engagement with digital media and devices.
The ability to generate, process, analyze, present meaningful in- formation from data and develop, use, and apply artificial 1.66
intelligence (AI) and related algorithmic tools and strategies in order to guide informed, optimized, and contextually relevant
decision-making processes.
The ability to identify, mitigate, and manage con- tent cyber-risks online (e.g., harmful user-generated content, racist/hateful 1.25
content, image-based abuse).
The ability to identify and develop oneself as a competent changemaker in the digital economy. 1.21
The ability to build and manage a healthy identity as a digital citizen with integrity. 1.06

manager’s digital intelligence. Based on the research of (Park, 2019;
IEEE, 2021), three main DQ competency levels were identified, each
with eight areas, resulting in a total of 24 DQ competencies.
The second research question was to determine the digital intelli­
gence competencies deemed important by project managers. Q-sort was
applied as a research method to determine the rankings. The results can
be used in two-ways to determine the digital intelligence competencies.
Firstly, the total z-scores per competency can be used. Competencies
with a z-score greater than one is illustrated in Table 5.
Secondly, the perspectives can be used to determine the aggregated
competencies. The statement that appeared within all four factors is
online communication and collaboration. It is also the competency with the
highest z-score. This forms the cornerstone for all four factors. The focus
is on the individual’s competence to use technology effectively to
communicate and collaborate effectively. This is applicable whether the
individual is part of a collocated team or a virtual team. It is important to
note that communication has always been deemed to be important as the
various project management and competence standards all have sections
on communication (Project Management Institute, 2017a; International
Project Management Association, 2015; Association for Project Man­
agement, 2006; Project Management Institute, 2017b).
Statements that were perceived as least important competencies are
related to security. There are six statements related to digital safety and
security. Organisational cyber-security management emerged as an
important competence within factor 3, but it was perceived as not
important by the other factors. The other five competencies were
regarded as neither important nor not important. This is contradictory to
a report from PMI stating that security and privacy knowledge is one of
the top six digital-age skills required by project managers (Project
Management Institute, 2018).
Based on the this study, the community of project managers’ digital
intelligence is represented by four perspectives. The first perspective
(communication and collaboration) is about the competencies required
to have meaningful interaction within a digital environment. To be
perceived as digitally intelligent, project managers should know how to
communicate in an online environment as well as how to create and
foster collaborations. This is especially difficult when it comes to team
members who do not have all the necessary technology or technical
skills. This is in line with the research of (Kirchner et al., 2021) stating
that leaders experience various challenges in a virtual environment.
These challenges include investments in online tools and upskilling
people in collaborating in a virtual environment (He et al., 2021). With
regards to policy, organisations should have guidelines in place how
project managers and teams should engage and interact in a digital
environment. For instance, policies can guide on cultural participation
(Casemajor et al., 2021). In practice, project managers should have the
necessary competencies to communicate and collaborate meaningful in
a digital environment.
The second perspective entails the project manager’s perspective on
digital rights which is more important in an online environment than in
a normal environment. This perspective is driven by the project man­
agers’ belief of what is right in an online environment. The focus is on
intellectual property rights. It is easy to just ‘copy and paste’ nowadays
and claim it as one’s own work. The focus is also on being sensitive to
others and to handle personal information with discretion. These com­
petencies are also applicable in a non-digital world but are emphasised
by the ease of information availability. Project managers must be
competent in dealing with the vast amounts of information available to
them. This is supported by research stating that a top skill for building a
truly digital capability is data science (Project Management Institute,
2018). Policies should be clear on intellectual property, the protection of
personal and other information as well as the handling and storage of
data. From a practical perspective, project managers should have the
competencies to manage large data and the interpretation of such. This
implies that project managers should be competent in data analytics and
management (Project Management Institute, 2018).
The third perspective deals with communication alone. It is different
from social perspective 1, as the focus is more on the technical aspects of
communication. One competence that stands out is the application of
artificial intelligence to make sense of all the information and to present
it to the team in a meaningful way. The project manager should also be
competent in communication with an online audience to share ideas and
opinions. Communicating in an online environment requires different
communication skills than in a normal face-to-face environment. Project
managers should be skilled in the usage of various communication tools
and how to foster a culture of innovation. Ideation and innovation do not
occur naturally in a digital environment and project managers must
master the skill to elicit new ideas from the team even if they are not co-
located.
Social perspective 4 is an emergent perspective and the results
should be interpreted with caution. This perspective focuses on the
online identity of the project manager and on building and managing a
healthy identity. This includes the ability to manage one’s life in an
online environment and to limit screen time. Most importantly, it is the
ability to be a changemaker in the digital environment. Organisational
policies should focus on the boundaries of personal, professional, and
public communication (Banghart et al., 2018). Project managers on the
other hand, should also be able to support work-life balance. In a digital
environment where everyone is constantly online, it is easy to lose track
of ‘formal office hours’ and communication can occur beyond normal
working hours.
Fig. 5 indicates the correlations between the four factors. It is evident

8
C. Marnewick and A. Marnewick
Fig. 5. Relationships between social perspectives.
that there is only one weak correlation between social perspectives 1 and
4. This may indicate that one social perspective may be found in the
same context as the other and that one may influence the other to a
minor extent. Other than this observation, there is almost no relation­
ship between the other social perspectives. Therefore, the various per­
spectives may randomly exist among the others in a particular context.
It is evident from the literature review that the current project
management competency standards do not cover future competencies as
well as DQ competencies. This implies that a holistic approach is needed
to equip project leaders for the future management of projects (Adams,
2004). Organisations as well as project managers will have to develop
strategies to accommodate these new competencies.
6. Conclusions
The aim of the article was twofold: to identify the digital intelligence
competencies that are relevant to project managers and, secondly, to
gain in-depth knowledge of what project managers deemed as important
digital intelligence competencies. With regard to the first aim, a syn­
thesis of the literature indicates that the 4IR demands new competencies
and that current project management competencies are not sufficient.
Various authors have indicated that project managers need compe­
tencies in the following areas: technical, personal and social. This is in
line with the WEF’s prediction that new competencies will be required
such as analytical thinking and complex problem-solving. A skill that
project managers also require is being digitally competent. To be digi­
tally competent, a project manager requires digital intelligence (DQ).
The DQ Institute has formulated the competencies associated with dig­
ital intelligence and these digital intelligence competencies were used in
this research to determine the digital intelligence of project managers
within the South African context.
With regard to the second aim, the z-scores as per Table 5, indicate
various competencies are deemed important. These competencies
should be seen in relation to future competencies and how the identified
digital competencies could support and strengthen the future workforce
competencies as identified by (Walker and Lloyd-Walker, 2019) and
(Marnewick and Marnewick, 2020). One competency that stood out is
online communication and collaboration. It is of the utmost
importance that project managers skill themselves in online
communication and collaboration (Waizenegger et al., 2020). This is
especially applicable to a workforce that will be working more and
more remotely.
9
Project Leadership and Society 2 (2021) 100026
6.1. Theoretical implications
This research contributes to the current debate on the skills and
competencies required for the 4IR. It addresses a specific gap within the
project management discipline and specifically the notion of digital in­
telligence. Project managers will be required to become more digitally
intelligent to manage and implement 4IR-related projects in an efficient
and effective way. This research opens avenues for future research on
the notion of intelligence itself. Can the seven types of intelligence be
expanded to include digital intelligence and how will it be measured?
This study can further be used by other academia to use these results to
further the research in this area.
6.2. Managerial implications
The results of this research can be used by organisations to map a
training and upskilling path for project managers. The IEEE standard
(IEEE, 2021) can be used as a starting point and the purpose of the
upskilling should be on all 24 competencies. Special attention should be
given to the security-related competencies. The various project man­
agement associations and institutes must also start expanding their
current competency standards and include digital intelligence in their
respective competency standards. A concerted effort is required between
the project management society on the one hand and business on the
other to upskill project managers to become digitally savvy.
6.3. Limitations and future research
A drawback of this study is that the research had a South African
focus and the question is whether the results have wider relevance.
Future research should focus on addressing this drawback and currently
research is being conducted in Israel and Italy to determine similarities
and differences between project managers’ perspectives in developing
and developed countries. This research did not touch on the digital in­
telligence of organisations and future research could examine the rela­
tionship between the digital intelligence of organisations and of project
managers. Future research will also focus on creating measurements to
actually test the digital intelligence of project managers.
Declaration of competing interest
There is no conflict of interest.
C. Marnewick and A. Marnewick Project Leadership and Society 2 (2021) 100026

APPENDIX 1. PERCEIVED DIGITAL INTELLIGENCE COMPETENCIES

10
C. Marnewick and A. Marnewick Project Leadership and Society 2 (2021) 100026

. (continued).

11
C. Marnewick and A. Marnewick Project Leadership and Society 2 (2021) 100026

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