Research Note
Spiritual Intelligence and Business Environments
Fadil Mušinović
Faculty of Commercial and Business Sciences, Slovenia
fadil.musinovic@siol.net
The article combines two development-oriented concepts, spiritual intelligence and
business systems, composed of four elements. Spiritual intelligence, according to
King (2008), consists of critical existential thinking, production of personal mean-
ing, transcendental awareness, and conscious state expansion. Business systems, ac-
cording to Bulc (2006), evolve evolutionarily in four stages, from the working envi-
ronment, through the learning and thinking environments, to the conscious envi-
ronment. The purpose of the study was to determine whether the factors of spiritual
intelligence are related to the developmental stages of business systems and whether
they differ in the various developmental stages of business systems. The empirical
data was collected electronically, using a composite questionnaire in different busi-
ness environments. 601 employees participated in the study. The results showed pos-
itive correlations between the factors of spiritual intelligence and learning, thinking,
and the conscious environment, but no correlation to the working environment. In
various development stages of business systems, certain differences have been re-
vealed between the factors of spiritual intelligence. Regarding spiritual intelligence
and business environments, the research has also showndifferences based on gender,
work experience, and the level of education.
Keywords: spiritual intelligence, evolution, business environments, individual,
development
https://doi.org/10.26493/2335-4194.13.167-177
Introduction
Intelligence has been evolving as a discipline through
different milestones. The beginnings of research date
back to the age of Plato and Aristotle (see http://www
.intelltheory.com), while the one of the first scien-
tific definitions dates back to the end of the 18th cen-
tury. That is when Galton tried to measure the ba-
sic abilities of the mind through sensory discrimi-
nation and reaction times (Jensen, 2002). Later on,
James Cattell broadened Galton’s work with psycho-
logical testing and by using surveys and question-
naires, targeted at studying intelligence (Cianciolo &
Sternberg, 2004). The next milestone was the work of
two French psychologists, Alfred Binet and Theodore
Simon, who have developed an objective test for mea-
suring a child’s intelligence, while the development in
this direction led to Terman’s adaptation of the test
and the use of the iq. In comparison to the individual
tests, the Army alpha and Army beta group tests can
also be considered as milestones (Detterman, 2009).
The consequence of such a long period of study
is an abundance of definitions, in which each offers
their own aspect (e.g. the classical aspect, the biolog-
ical aspect) in defining the intelligence of a person in
a slightly different way. For Gottfredson (1998), intel-
ligence is an individual’s ability to deal with cogni-
tive complexity, for Sternberg and Salter (1982), intel-
ligence is goal-oriented and environmentally-adjust-
able behaviour, while theMerriamWebsterDictionary
(https://www.merriam-webster.com) states that intel-
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Fadil Mušinovi Spiritual Intelligence and Business Environments
ligence is the ability to learn and understand or work
or try to work in new situations; skillful use of reason-
ing; the ability to use knowledge to manage one’s en-
vironment; or abstract thinking, as is measured with
objective criteria (e.g. tests). Different reasoning and
arguments of what intelligence is and is not has gone
so far, that a group of 52 scientists signed a statement
in December 1994, declaring what intelligence is and
what it is not (Gottfredson, 1997).
The spirituality of an individual has also been re-
searched relativelywell, as it has been studied since the
time of William James (1902), who believed that our
spiritual experiences have the potential to broaden and
deepen our lives. However, there are more definitions
of what spirituality is. Some authors define spirituality
as an inner instinct (Emmons, 2000), while others de-
fine it as a sequence of topmost experiences and tran-
scendent moments (MacDonald, 2000). But some au-
thors believe that spirituality is represented as an inte-
gration of both the inner instinct aswell as topmost ex-
periences (Coyle, 2002; George et al., 2000; Vaughan,
2002).
Historically, spirituality was not separate from re-
ligious experiences, but nevertheless some theorists
believe that key differences between religion and spir-
ituality do exist (Del Rio &White, 2012). The thought
that spirituality could be a form of intelligence was
developed with the theory of multiple intelligences
(Gardner, 1995). In this theory, intelligence is a series
of connected and, at the same time, separate cogni-
tive processes and abilities that allow us to under-
stand the world, our development, and our improve-
ments. It is also the ability to solve problems in differ-
ent fields of human activity. In his own theory, Gard-
ner (1995) speaks of multiple intelligences: the lingual,
logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, motor, inter-
personal, and inner personal intelligence. The author
first thought that spirituality cannot be a form of intel-
ligence, but later changed his mind. He added a new
type of intelligence, the existential or moral intelli-
gence (Gardner, 2000), which has the characteristics
of spiritual intelligence (Emmons, 2000; King, 2008;
King & DeCicco, 2009; Vaughan, 2002). It includes
different development processes and adapts to a hu-
man’s life (Gardner, 1995).
Spiritual intelligence, as defined in this paper, is
not spiritually inspirational or religious identity and
practice. If we possess spiritual intelligence, we do not
require a belief system linked to religion, and we are
not required to identify ourselves as a spiritual person
(King, 2008).
Spiritual intelligence is, just like general intelli-
gence (where we measure the person’s iq), differently
defined.According to Emmons (2003, p. 176), spiritual
intelligence is ‘an adaptive use of spiritual information
with the purpose of easing daily problem solving and
reaching set goals.’ It is composed of the ability to tran-
scend the physical and material, the experience of a
heightened state of consciousness, dedication to daily
experiences, and the use of spiritual resources to solve
problems.
Vaughan (2002) states that spiritual intelligence,
along with self-awareness, also means that we are
aware of our own relationship to the excess in regards
to the Earth and to all living beings.
On the other hand, Zohar and Marshall (2000, p.
3) believe that spiritual intelligence ‘enables people to
be creative, to change the rules, and to change their sit-
uations. It enables us to play with boundaries, it gives
us moral meaning, it enables us to confront the ques-
tions of good and evil, and enables us to imagine the
unrealized possibilities.’
Wolman (2001, p. 84) established that spiritual in-
telligence is ‘a human capacity for asking final ques-
tions about the purpose of life and, at the same time,
a capacity to embrace these questions in experiencing
seamless connections between all of us and the world,
in which we live in.’
King and DeCicco (2009, p. 69) have defined spir-
itual intelligence as ‘a collection of mental capacities,
which contribute to awareness, integration, and ad-
justment of immaterial and transcendent aspects of
an individual’s existence, which lead to consequences,
such as: critical existential thinking, producing per-
sonalmeaning, transcendent awareness, and conscious
state expansion.’ Reaching and experiencing these spir-
itual abilities is supposed to – while taking into ac-
count Gardner’s criteria for measuring and determin-
ing the field of intelligence – strengthen the quality of
an individual’s life (Gardner, 1995; 2000).
168 | Academica Turistica, Year 13, No. 2, December 2020
Fadil Mušinovi Spiritual Intelligence and Business Environments
The quality of an individual’s life can be strength-
ened within different contexts. We can, for example,
strengthen it at home, in a business environment or in
other social systems in which we are included in our
life, as these social systems influence our lives and our
spiritual intelligence (Yang & Wu, 2009). The influ-
ence can differ. For example, Schneider (1987) states
that the influence between the social system and the
individual is mutual. According to the theory (model)
of asa – Attraction – Selection – Attrition, social sys-
tems attract certain types of people, in which, if they
get along with the system or organisation, they stay
based on selection, or leave it later on.
Business systems are also social systems. In these
systems we conduct our work and go about our busi-
ness. Structurally they are diverse; they can be, for ex-
ample, hierarchical (e.g. the police, the military, the
fire brigade), or they can be flatter (e.g. Google), but
compared to personal, family, and leisure social sys-
tems, they are different. People, with whom we so-
cialise there, are different. The way of thinking and be-
having is different. Even goals that we follow with the
context of business systems are different.
Business systems can be understood as living be-
ings, or at least they have some characteristics of living
beings: they have their own evolutional dynamic, his-
tory, present, and future; they are independent organ-
isms with feelings, fears, and dreams; they have their
own mission, goals, and life span. They differ among
each other and at the same time they are connected,
because ‘for each newphase [stage] it is absolutely nec-
essary to possess the vital forces of its predecessors’
(Bulc, 2006, p. 20).
According to Bulc (2006), the development of busi-
ness systems encompasses four development stages:
the working environment, the learning environment,
the thinking environment, and the conscious environ-
ment. These stages run in sequence, by business rules,
resources, and leverages. Between the stages there are
transitional transformational periods of conduct, in
which it comes to disorders or dialectical fights be-
tween the old and the new (e.g. dialectical fight be-
tween the working and the learning environment).
The working environment is the first developmen-
tal stage of business systems. Added value in this sys-
tem is created with diligent work, which results in cre-
ating a product as the key part of the working process.
Work is conducted through manufacture; it is partly
automated and computerised. Methods for systematic
cost management are developed to some extent, in-
cluding the optimisation of support services. The key
competitive advantage is the productivity and its con-
stant increase.
The second developmental stage – the learning
stage – is characterised by added value that is cre-
atedwith knowledge. Diligence, which posed as added
value in the previous stage, does not suffice anymore
in this stage. It needs to be upgraded with knowledge,
which is accumulated in ever more accessible liter-
ature that, through in-depth studies, enables bigger
productivity management. As a consequence, the dif-
ference in productivity between individual companies
gets smaller, which by itself demands a different type of
added value or a different competitive advantage. The
latter is seen in this stage in knowledge, which also
manifests itself in the quality of the product. In this
developmental period the key observed item is not
the product or the emotional attachments of workers
and managers to the product, but the customers, who
think the product is interesting and, later on, buy it.
Or they decide not to buy it. In relation to this – com-
paratively with the working environment – the work
processes also change. These are based on knowledge
and change through time or circle through constant
improvements. In consequence, the management pro-
cess, interpersonal relations, work organisation, val-
ues, etc. also comparatively change or develop.
Creativity brings added value into the thinking en-
vironment, while the key element is innovation. Qual-
ity is improving comparatively with the learning en-
vironment, while the improvements are based on cre-
ative innovations, which are unknown and different.
A growing emphasis is given to the individual and
the inter-functional teams, which can only function
in relaxed and dynamic environments, where there is
enough time to think and get creative ideas. It is also
important to collaborate with the environment, where,
in a mix of hard work, knowledge, and thinking, new
ideas and innovative processes arise, which themarket
or the environment need.
Academica Turistica, Year 13, No. 2, December 2020 | 169
Fadil Mušinovi Spiritual Intelligence and Business Environments
The conscious environment is the last develop-
mental stage. It represents a growing humanisation
of work; added value is represented by intuitiveness
in deep connection with spirituality. The key factor is
the life energy of the individual, group, or company,
values and informal forms of collaboration with the
environment.
The researched topic is in our opinion scientifically
relevant, because spiritual intelligence is an interest-
ing and poorly researched concept, especially in the
context of developmental stages of business systems,
whichwas themain purpose and goal of this paper.We
wanted to determinewhether there is a connection be-
tween spiritual intelligence and developmental stages
of business environments, what kind of connection it
is and also, whether spiritual intelligence is different in
various stages of business systems and, if it is, what are
the differences.
Given that such research has not been conducted
yet, we based the logic of establishing hypotheses from
links in the content of cited papers. We checked two
hypotheses:
h1 In higher developmental stages of business sys-
tems employees have a more developed spiritual
intelligence.
h2 Spiritual intelligence is significantly different in
individual developmental stages of business sys-
tems.
Method
The research was done through the usual steps; the
first part was theoretical and intended for reviewing
literature and previous research, and forming theoret-
ical fundamentals based on known concepts. Descrip-
tive, compilation, comparative, and analysis and syn-
thesis methods were used in this part.
In the second – the empirical part, validity, relia-
bility, objectivity, and othermeasurable characteristics
of the tools used were introduced. Later, results were
introduced and explained, after which discussion fol-
lows.
Respondents
The sample was opportunistic and self-selective. 615
people chose to participate. 14 questionnaireswere dis-
carded from the survey, as they were either blank or
participants answered every question with the same
values, therefore, they were useless for the purposes of
the survey.
601 questionnaires were used in the survey. 227
(37.8  of the sample) men and 372 (61.9) women
participated. Two participants did not mark their gen-
ders. This represented 0.3 of all included question-
naires.
Participants were 18 to 70 years old. The average
agewas 40 years. Five individuals did not disclose their
age. Age data was divided into categories of 10 years.
The categories were: under 20 years, 20–30 years, 30–
40 years, 40–50 years, 50–60 years, and 60–70 years.
Due to the fact that there were only 4 participants un-
der the age of 20, we put them into the category 20–30
years. There were 132 (22) individuals in this cate-
gory. The category 20–30 years included 207 (34.4)
individuals. The category 40–50 years included 163
(27.1) individuals. The category 50–60 years included
76 (12.6) individuals. The last category included 18
(3) participants.
Years of work experience of participants varied
from 0 to 47 years. 13 participants did not disclose
this information. The data was divided into categories
of 10 years; from 0 to 10, from 11 to 20, from 21 to 30,
from 31 to 40, and from 41 to 50 years. The first cat-
egory included 192 (31.9) participants. The category
11–20 included 184 (30.6) individuals. The category
21–30 included 134 (22.3) participants. The following
category was 31–40. This category included 70 (11.6)
individuals. The last category included 8 (1.3) partic-
ipants.
Based on education, the participants were divided
into these groups: 3 (0.5) participants had primary
education, 102 (17) had secondary education, 178
(29.6) participants had the first Bologna level of
education, 252 (41.9) participants had the second
Bologna level of education, while 60 (10) individ-
uals had the third Bologna level of education. 6 (1)
participants did not disclose their education level.
523 (87 of the sample) participants were em-
ployed, 40 (6.7) were students, 20 (3.3) were re-
tired, while 16 (2.7) were unemployed. 2 (0.3) par-
ticipants did not disclose their employment status.
170 | Academica Turistica, Year 13, No. 2, December 2020
Fadil Mušinovi Spiritual Intelligence and Business Environments
Tools
Weused a questionnaire in our survey andhave named
it Spiritual intelligence (sq) in business environments
(po). It was composed of two different sources. We
used the Spiritual intelligence self-report inventory –
sisri-24 (King, 2008; King & DeCicco, 2009) for the
part regarding spiritual intelligence, while for the part
regarding business environments we used our own
four items that were produced based on Bulc’s (2006)
statements. The questionnaire included 28 items and
demographic data. The Cronbach alpha for the 50
stated items was 0.908.
The Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory –
sisri-24 (King, 2008; King & DeCicco, 2009) mea-
sures two kinds of abilities and skills: critical existen-
tial thinking, personal meaning production, transcen-
dent awareness, and conscious state expansion. For
this we used the 5-point Likert scale with 1 meaning ‘is
not true at all’ and 5 meaning ‘absolutely true.’ The
Cronbach alpha for all 24 items was 0.944; for the
7-item factor ‘critical existential thinking’ the Cron-
bach alpha was 0.874, for the 5-item factor ‘personal
meaning production’ it was 0.817, for the 7-item ‘tran-
scendent awareness’ it was 0.736, and for the 5-item
‘conscious state expansion’ it was 0.888.
The following were four items of our own designed
questionnaire for measuring the evolutionary devel-
opmental stage of business environments, which was
designed based on the theory (Bulc, 2006). The ques-
tionnaire is composed of four items: the working envi-
ronment, the learning environment, the thinking en-
vironment, and the conscious environment. We used
a 3-point scale, where 1 means ‘does not apply to us,’ 2
means ‘partly applies to us,’ and 3 means ‘it applies to
us almost entirely.’ The Cronbach alpha for the above-
mentioned items was 0.630.
Procedures
Data was collected with an electronic questionnaire
with the help of Google docs tools. For data gathering
we used snowball non-random sampling (Biernacki
& Waldorf, 1981; Faugier & Sergeant, 1997) that took
place via various organisation managements.
The link to the questionnaire was sent to various e-
mail addresses with included requests that the e-mail
recipients participate in the survey and share the in-
vitation to the survey through their social networks –
their friends, acquaintances, coworkers, etc.
The gathered forms were then exported to the rel-
evant format for later processing in the spss software
(Statistical Package for Social Sciences). The database
was also refined in order to obtain more stable re-
sults for processing. First, we discarded the 9 blank
questionnaires. After that structural analysis followed.
Based on this analysis, we also removed 5 question-
naires that had the same value filled out in all the ques-
tions (e.g. all the items had the value 3). The remaining
601 were then included in the statistical analysis.
The statistical analysis was then conducted accord-
ing to the instructions for each concept. So, for the
analysis regarding spiritual intelligence it was taken
into account that the overall result, after the reverse
coding of the 6th item is done, is the sum of all an-
swers on the items. We named it Spiritual intelligence
and marked it with sq. We have also taken into ac-
count that the higher the result, the higher is the level
of spiritual intelligence or individual capacities (King,
2008). The items in Spiritual intelligence were divided
into 4 factors based on factor analysis (King, 2008),
namely:
1. The factor critical existential thinking – abbre-
viated as cet – was calculated by summing the
seven items which, according to King (2008), fall
into this category. These items are 1, 3, 5, 9, 13, 17,
and 21.
2. The factor personalmeaning production – abbre-
viated as pmp – was calculated by summing the
five items which, according to King (2008), fall
into this category. These items are 7, 11, 15, 19, and
23.
3. The factor transcendent awareness – abbreviated
as ta – was calculated by summing the seven
items which, according to King (2008), fall into
this category. These items are 2, 6 (reverse cod-
ing), 10, 14, 18, 20, and 22.
4. The factor conscious state expansion – abbrevi-
ated as cse –was calculated by summing the five
items which, according to King (2008), fall into
this category. These items are 4, 8, 12, 16, and 24.
Academica Turistica, Year 13, No. 2, December 2020 | 171
Fadil Mušinovi Spiritual Intelligence and Business Environments
The evolutionary development of business envi-
ronments – abbreviated as pok – is covered in one
item that was designed based on the questionnaire
results. It was done so that from a collection of four
evolutionary development stages we added up the raw
results and divided them into individual categories or
stages of the evolutionary development. Consequently,
the values 4 and 5 were classified into the work busi-
ness environment, 6 and 7 into the learning business
environment, 8 and 9 into the thinking business envi-
ronment, and 10, 11, and 12 were classified into the
conscious business environment. The evolutionary
development of business environments is also defined
through individual developmental stages of business
systems, namely 4 variables, named after the develop-
mental stages: the working environment, the learning
environment, the thinking environment, and the con-
scious environment.
Results
Table 1 shows the correlation between spiritual intelli-
gence (sq) and its factors critical existential thinking
(cet), personalmeaning production (pmp), transcen-
dent awareness (ta), conscious state expansion (cse),
and the evolutionary developmental stages of business
systems – work, learning, thinking, and conscious en-
vironment.
The table also shows a statistically significant posi-
tive correlation between the learning environment and
spiritual intelligence (sq) and its factors critical exis-
tential thinking (cet), personal meaning production
(pmp), transcendent awareness (ta) and conscious
state expansion (cse). A statistically significant pos-
itive correlation is also shown between the learning
environment and spiritual intelligence (sq) and its
factors critical existential thinking (cet), personal
meaning production (pmp), transcendent awareness
(ta) and conscious state expansion (cse). There is
also a statistically significant positive correlation be-
tween the conscious environment and spiritual intel-
ligence (sq) and its factors critical existential thinking
(cet), personalmeaning production (pmp), transcen-
dent awareness (ta) and conscious state expansion
(cse).
In the first column the table shows that the corre-
Table 1 Correlation between Spiritual Intelligence
and Developmental Stages of Business Systems
Item () () () ()
sq –. .** .* .*
cet –. .** . .
pmp –. .** .** .**
ta –. .** .* .
cse . .** .* .**
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) working envi-
ronment, (2) learning environment, (3) thinking environ-
ment, (4) conscious environment.N = 601. Displayed are the
derived variables sq – spiritual intelligence, cet – critical
existential thinking, pmp – personal meaning production,
ta – transcendent awareness, cse – conscious state expan-
sion and individual developmental stages of the business en-
vironment; the working, learning, thinking, and conscious
environment. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.
lation between the working environment and spiritual
intelligence and its three factors are mostly negative
and are not statistically significant.
Table 2 shows the results of the one-way variance
analysis, carried out by dependent variables spiritual
intelligence (sq), critical existential thinking (cet),
personal meaning production (pmp), transcendent
awareness (ta), conscious state expansion (cse), and
by the independent variable business environment
(pok).
Results show statistically significant differences be-
tween the evolutionary developmental stages of busi-
ness systems, namely by spiritual intelligence (sq),
personal meaning production (pmp), and conscious
state expansion (cse). The Tukey hsd post hoc test
showed that the differences are statistically signifi-
cant between the working environment and the learn-
ing environment, and between the learning environ-
ment and the conscious environment at spiritual in-
telligence (sq), personal meaning production (pmp),
and conscious state expansion (cse). There were no
differences between the averages of critical existential
thinking (cet) and transcendent awareness (ta).
Table 3 shows correlations between spiritual intel-
ligence (sq) and its factors critical existential think-
ing (cet), personal meaning production (pmp), tran-
172 | Academica Turistica, Year 13, No. 2, December 2020
Fadil Mušinovi Spiritual Intelligence and Business Environments
Table 2 One-Way anova – Differences in Spiritual
Intelligence by Work Environments
Item () () () () ()
sq (a)  . .
(b)  . .
(c)  . .
(d)  . .
Sum  . . .* –, –
cet (a)  . .
(b)  . .
(c)  . .
(d)  . .
Sum  . . ns
pmp (a)  . .
(b)  . .
(c)  . .
(d)  . .
Sum  . . .***–, –
ta (a)  . .
(b)  . .
(c)  . .
(d)  . .
Sum  . . ns
cse (a)  . .
(b)  . .
(c)  . .
(d)  . .
Sum  . . .** –, –
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) sample size,
(2) average, (3) standard deviance, (4) variance ratio,
(5) – differences between categories after post hoc anal-
ysis. Row headings are as follows: (a) working envi-
ronment, (b) learning environment, (c) thinking envi-
ronment, (d) conscious environment. Displayed are the
dependent derived variables sq – spiritual intelligence,
cet – critical existential thinking, pmp – personal mean-
ing production, ta – transcendent awareness, cse – con-
scious state expansion and the independent variable pok
– business environments, which has four values: work-
ing environment, learning environment, thinking environ-
ment, and conscious environment. The Tukey hsd test
was used for the post hoc analysis. *p < 0.05, **p <
0.01, *** p < 0.001, ns – no statistically significant differ-
ences.
Table 3 Correlations between the Variable Business
Environments and Spiritual Intelligence
Item pok sq cet pmp ta cse
pok –
sq .** –
cet . .** –
pmp .** .** .** –
ta .* .** .** .** –
cse .** .** .** .** .** –
Notes N = 601. Displayed are the derived variables sq
– spiritual intelligence, cet – critical existential thinking,
pmp – personal meaning production, ta – transcendent
awareness, cse – conscious state expansion, and pok –
business environments. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.
scendent awareness (ta) and conscious state expan-
sion (cse), and the derived variable business environ-
ments (pok).
Results show a statistically significant positive cor-
relation between the derived variable business envi-
ronment (pok) and spiritual intelligence (sq) and
its factors personal meaning production (pmp), tran-
scendent awareness (ta), and conscious state expan-
sion (cse).
Visible are also positive intercorrelations between
spiritual intelligence (sq) and its factors critical exis-
tential thinking (cet), personal meaning production
(pmp), transcendent awareness (ta), and conscious
state expansion (cse).
Table 4 shows the results of the one-way variance
analysis, namely the statistically significant differences
between genders. The table shows that by spiritual in-
telligence (sq), critical existential thinking (cet), per-
sonal meaning production (pmp), and by transcen-
dent awareness (ta) women had statistically signifi-
cantly higher average scores, except by the last vari-
able, namely the business environment (pok), where
men had higher scores on average.
Table 5 shows the results of the one-way variance
analysis, namely between the levels of education. The
table shows that there are statistically significant dif-
ferences between levels of education by spiritual in-
telligence (sq), personal meaning production (pmp),
conscious state expansion (cse), and by business en-
Academica Turistica, Year 13, No. 2, December 2020 | 173
Fadil Mušinovi Spiritual Intelligence and Business Environments
Table 4 One-Way anova – Differences by Variables
between Genders
Item () () () ()
sq Male  . .
Female  . .
Sum  . . .***
cet Male  . .
Female  . .
Sum  . . .***
pmp Male  . .
Female  . .
Sum  . . .**
ta Male  . .
Female  . .
Sum  . . .***
pok Male  . .
Female  . .
Sum  . . .***
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) sample size, (2)
average, (3) standard deviance, (4) variance ratio. Displayed
are only the items where statistically significant differences
were found. Displayed are the variables sq – spiritual in-
telligence, cet – critical existential thinking, pmp – per-
sonal meaning production, ta – transcendent awareness,
cse – conscious state expansion, and pok – business envi-
ronments. **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.
vironment (pok). In the table we can see that the par-
ticipants who scored the highest average spiritual in-
telligence had also achieved the third Bologna level of
education. The same applies to the variable personal
meaning production (pmp) and to conscious state ex-
pansion (cse). These are the variables that refer to
spiritual intelligence. The results also show that the
highest average score by depersonalization (dep) were
achieved by those with a secondary level of education,
while those with the first level of education scored the
highest on average by business environment.
Table 6 shows the correlation between spiritual in-
telligence (sq) and its factors critical existential think-
ing (cet), personal meaning production (pmp), tran-
scendent awareness (ta), conscious state expansion
(cse), and two dimensions of business environments.
Table 5 One-Way anova – Differences Based on
Achieved Level of Education
Item () () () () ()
sq (a)  . .
(b)  . .
(c)  . .
(d)  . .
(e)  . .
Sum  . . .* –, –,
–
pmp (a)  . .
(b)  . .
(c)  . .
(d)  . .
(e)  . .
Sum  . . .* –, –,
–, –
cse (a)  . .
(b)  . .
(c)  . .
(d)  . .
(e)  . .
Sum  . . .* –, –,
–
pok (a)  . .
(b)  . .
(c)  . .
(d)  . .
(e)  . .
Sum  . . .***–, –,
–, –,
–, –
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) sample size,
(2) average, (3) standard deviance, (4) variance ratio, (5)
– differences between categories after post hoc analysis.
Row headings are as follows: (a) primary, (b) secondary, (c)
first Bologna, (d) second Bologna, (e) third Bologna. Dis-
played are only the variables where statistically significant
differences were found, namely sq – spiritual intelligence,
cet – critical existential thinking, pmp – personal mean-
ing production, ta – transcendent awareness, cse – con-
scious state expansion, and pok – business environments.
The lsd test was used for post hoc analysis. *p < 0.05, ***p
< 0.001
174 | Academica Turistica, Year 13, No. 2, December 2020
Fadil Mušinovi Spiritual Intelligence and Business Environments
Table 6 Correlation between Two Dimensions of Business
Environments and Spiritual Intelligence
Item d d
sq .** .**
cet . .
pmp .* .**
ta .* .*
cse .* .**
Notes N = 601. Displayed are the derived variables sq
– spiritual intelligence, cet – critical existential thinking,
pmp – personal meaning production, ta – transcendent
awareness, cse – conscious state expansion, d1 – first di-
mension of business environments, and d2 – second di-
mension of business environments. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.
In the first dimension we have the work and learning
environments and in the second we have the thinking
and conscious environments.
The table also shows statistically significant pos-
itive correlations between spiritual intelligence (sq)
and both dimensions of business environments.
Also statistically significant and positive are corre-
lations between personal meaning production (pmp),
transcendent awareness (ta) and conscious state ex-
pansion (cse) and both dimensions of business envi-
ronments.
Discussion
The paper shows two separate concepts, which at first
sight have nothing in common. But if we look closely,
we can see that they have at least one common denom-
inator – the human. The human is the one who asks
himself whether there is only one type of intelligence
built into him, or are there more, and whether or not
he is more or less spiritually intelligent. And the hu-
man is the one who enabled us to be asking ourselves
about different developmental stages of business sys-
tems and be able to research them.
With the survey we wanted to research the poten-
tial relationship between a human’s spiritual intelli-
gence and the developmental stages of business sys-
tems. We wanted to know whether spiritual intelli-
gence is different regarding the developmental stages
of business systems. That is why we established two
hypotheses that relate to the connections between the
factors of spiritual intelligence that, according to King
and DeCicco (2009), are critical existential thinking
(cet), personalmeaning production (pmp), transcen-
dent awareness (ta), conscious state expansion (cse),
and the developmental stages of business systems,
which are: working environment, learning environ-
ment, thinking environment, and conscious environ-
ment (Bulc, 2006).
Obtained data shows that spiritual intelligence is
connected with various developmental stages of busi-
ness environments. The data also shows that through
developmental stages of business systems the intensity
of spiritual intelligence differs.
The first hypothesis predicted that the connection
between spiritual intelligence and business systems is
positive. A higher average level of spiritual intelligence
would therefore be in higher developmental stages of
business systems. This can mean two things. One, ac-
cording to the asa theory (Schneider, 1987), themore
spiritually intelligent people attract each other and stay
in developmentally higher business systems, or two,
the developmental stage of a business system has an
effect on an employee’s average level of spiritual intel-
ligence. Results showed that the lowest developmen-
tal stage of business systems – the working environ-
ment – does not correlate with spiritual intelligence
and its factors. The correlation between spiritual intel-
ligence and its factors are first evident with the learn-
ing environment and then continue in the next two de-
velopmental stages – the thinking and the conscious
environment. But the results are not consistent in a
sense that the higher developmental stages of the busi-
ness system would point to higher average develop-
mental stages of spiritual intelligence. This is shown by
the correlation between spiritual intelligence and the
learning business environment, which is also statisti-
cally more reliable than correlation of spiritual intel-
ligence with the thinking and the conscious business
environments. Extra evidence for this can be found in
the factor critical existential thinking, where the statis-
tically significant correlation was evident only by the
learning business environment (Table 1).
The answer to this question is given to us in Table
2, where it can be clearly seen that, on one hand, the
Academica Turistica, Year 13, No. 2, December 2020 | 175
Fadil Mušinovi Spiritual Intelligence and Business Environments
second hypothesis must be partly confirmed, because
spiritual intelligence significantly differs by individ-
ual developmental stages of business systems. On the
other hand, the differences can be attributed to only
two dimensions. In one we have the work and learning
environments and in the second we have the thinking
and conscious environments (Table 6).
The results also showed statistically significant dif-
ferences in the level of spiritual intelligence (sq) by
individual developmental stages of business systems –
F(3.540) = 3.415, p = 0.017. Differences can also be seen
by individual factors of spiritual intelligence (see Table
2), by certain variables, between genders (see Table 4),
and between the achieved levels of education (see Ta-
ble 5).
Such research has not been done yet, which is why
there is no comparable data. But we can say that,
roughly, our findings are in compliance with King’s
(2008) and King’s and DeCicco’s (2009) findings, as
well as with the findings of Yang and Wu (2009). The
latter two also state that social systems have an influ-
ence on spiritual intelligence.
Both the above-mentioned concepts – spiritual in-
telligence and development of business systems – are
individually important for the human being, which we
proved in a broad sense in this paper.
As with every research, even this one has room for
improvement. It is based on the assumption that we
will get enough informationwith the snowballmethod
that will, on the one hand, be useful for understand-
ing and concluding and, on the other hand, that this
datawill reflect the actual state of the spirit, beliefs, and
the aspects of the surveyed phenomenon. Of course,
the number of participants can be understood in two
ways, especially in a time of saturation, with more or
less felicitous andmore or less professionally evaluated
questionnaires, which are everything but a contribu-
tion to the already known.On one hand, there are peo-
ple who wanted to participate and, on the other, there
are people who are interested in the topic.
It is different with our questionnaire. We have
meticulously designed in accordance with the the-
ory. We also done a pilot survey on a sample of stu-
dents, which showed that we are on the right path
and that the instrument for measuring spiritual in-
telligence is actually valid, reliable, objective, and in
accordance with King’s (2008) published data. Never-
theless, a word on executing random sampling with
big-enough samples is in order.
Future surveys on the topic should also address
limitation of the sample being opportunistic and self-
selective. In this context also, a distribution of demo-
graphic data of the sample does not allow generalisa-
tions – we recommend at least a poststratification of
gathered data.
We see the limitation of our research in the ele-
ments which are based on electronic data collection.
But the electronic data collection is also an advantage,
as it is more economic in regards to saving money and
time.
This contribution is therefore a theoretical and em-
pirical upgrade to the concept of spiritual intelligence
within the evolutionary development of business sys-
tems. It took place in the Slovenian cultural space,
which, in the sense of international comparison, rep-
resents a contribution to science.
The research has limitations. Therefore, we can
summarise that the results aremostly indicative – they
point to connections of spiritual intelligencewith busi-
ness systems and indicate that the spiritual intelligence
of participants in different business environments is,
indeed, different.
Our set research problem could therefore be ex-
panded in ways by connecting with stress, burnout,
and other negative consequences of life and working
in business systems. In this context it would be sensi-
ble to researchwhether stress has an influence on spir-
itual intelligence, is spiritual intelligence a catalyst for
stress, and how are these relations in context with in-
dividual developmental stages of business systems.
Despite the limitations mentioned, our research is
important. Not only for the individuals but also for
business systems and leaders of these systems.
As Zohar andMarshall (2000) state, spiritual intel-
ligence is the highest level of human intelligence and
as such also combines classical intelligence and emo-
tional intelligence. Positive influences of classical and
emotional intelligence are well established in literature
(e.g. Goleman, 1995; Ciarrochi et al., 2001; Shen et al.,
2008; Mayer et al., 2008); in addition we could learn
176 | Academica Turistica, Year 13, No. 2, December 2020
Fadil Mušinovi Spiritual Intelligence and Business Environments
some aspects of spiritual intelligence (Zareei & Sedr-
pooshan, 2015). If that is true, then leaders in all busi-
ness systems should train to heighten their spiritual
intelligence and consequently be better leaders, which
will in addition change interpersonal relationships be-
tween employees and between employees and leaders
and that should lead in two directions. First in more
advanced business systems, and second in a higher de-
gree of spiritual intelligence of working individuals.
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