In the AI era, soft skills are the new hard skills
Dolev, N. & Itzkovich, Y.
Management and Business Education in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, 55-73
AI Conceptual
As artificial intelligence continues to automate routine cognitive and technical work, this chapter argues that soft skills—communication, collaboration, empathy, adaptability, and emotional intelligence—have become the new hard skills on which individual and organizational success depend. We review how the diffusion of AI-based tools across industries is reshaping job profiles, shrinking the share of tasks that can be performed profitably by humans on a purely technical basis, and elevating uniquely human capabilities that are difficult to automate. Drawing on research in management, education, and human resources, we map the core soft skills identified as critical for the AI era and discuss how they interact with technical expertise. We then consider the implications for management and business education: curricula, pedagogical approaches, and assessment practices must be redesigned to cultivate these competencies systematically rather than leave them to chance. We address challenges of teaching and evaluating soft skills, including measurement difficulties, cultural variation, and the risk of reducing them to checklists. The chapter closes with practical recommendations for educators, employers, and policymakers on integrating soft-skills development into training, hiring, and career-development pipelines in an AI-saturated labor market.
Cite
Dolev, N., & Itzkovich, Y. (2020). In the AI era, soft skills are the new hard skills. In Management and Business Education in the Time of Artificial Intelligence (pp. 55-73). Age Publishing.
Dolev, N., and Y. Itzkovich. "In the AI era, soft skills are the new hard skills." Management and Business Education in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, Age Publishing, 2020, pp. 55-73.
Dolev, N., and Y. Itzkovich. 2020. "In the AI era, soft skills are the new hard skills." In Management and Business Education in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, 55-73. Age Publishing.
@incollection{dolev2020,
title = {In the AI era, soft skills are the new hard skills},
author = {Dolev, N. and Itzkovich, Y.},
booktitle = {Management and Business Education in the Time of Artificial Intelligence},
publisher = {Age Publishing},
year = {2020},
pages = {55-73}
}