Work motivation of staff with High Intelligence Quotients (HIQ): From self-determination to social utility[La motivation au travail des personnels à Hauts Quotients Intellectuels (HQI) : De l'autodétermination à l'utilité sociale]

At a time when the quest for meaning is more than ever at the heart of the professional concerns of many employees, this article draws its originality from measuring the existence of a positive correlation between the satisfaction of needs and the autonomous motivation of HIQ, i.e., with an intelligence quotient greater than 130 on the Wechsler scale. Our thinking is both anchored in the Self-Determination Theory and in the Social Value Theory of People, and then tested with a substantial sample whose results are scrutinised by regression and variance analyses. Our results show that HIQs seem to focus more on their social utility than on their social desirability, and that an individual with a high intelligence quotient is more likely to leave their job if they do not find sufficient meaning in it despite the presence of positive extrinsic levers. Our study makes it possible to validate certain salient needs such as the importance given to the values defended by the organisation, the autonomy sought in the work or the need for relatively personalised management, the foundations of our recommendations. Its main theoretical contribution lies in a new definition of intelligence that we include in the field of Management Sciences, and that we state as the ability to make the right decisions for the organisation. The limits nourish our future avenues of research, in this case the mobilisation of an analysis by structural equations of our future statistical materials to refine the relationships between our variables, and this within the paradigms of brandemployer, psychological contracts, and complex intercultural environments.