Adaptive Expertise

The increasing number of changes at the workplace created through automation, political upheavals, and new technology frequently exposes individuals to unfamiliar situations. Mastering these situations requires individuals to possess adaptive expertise. By being an adaptive expert, individuals are able to deal with novel situations and remain performing at their original level. By drawing on recent literature, the goal of this chapter is to describe what adaptive expertise is. We contrast it with routine expertise to clarify when adaptive expertise produces superior performance to routine expertise. Subsequently we compare adaptive expertise to other expertise concepts. Following this, we describe how adaptive expertise can be developed and measured. The chapter ends with a number of recommendations of how individuals can be stimulated to develop adaptive expertise.