Attribution of Distributed Capacity to an Individual: How a Capacity Belonging to an Arrangement Comes to Be Credited to One Person

A result can appear under one person’s name while the capacity that produced it depends on colleagues, tools, data, procedures, and organizational resources. This paper develops Attribution of Distributed Capacity to an Individual, the mechanism by which a capacity supported by an arrangement is credited to the individual at whose position the output appears. The paper distinguishes the location of the output, the contributions on which performance depends, and the judgment about who possesses the capacity. It examines how a capacity claim can extend beyond the setting in which it was demonstrated, and why identifying a contribution requires evidence of a task-specific dependency. Whether a person’s performance is portable across settings remains an empirical question. Research on firm-specific human capital provides the nearest comparison. Studies of star securities analysts who changed employers illustrate the setting-dependent component of performance. The paper distinguishes that evidence from the additional evidence needed to establish that a distributed capacity was attributed exclusively to an individual. Part of the Relational Conditions and Dynamics series within On Human Modeling, the analysis considers how judgments about capacity shape recognition, hiring, and continued support. It identifies questions for determining what a result required, how far a capacity claim reaches, and whether the work behind the result receives appropriate credit.