Applied research
Practitioner analyses that take one thesis from the research and work it through a concrete senior-hiring problem.
Applied research sits between the position papers and the buyer guides. Each analysis takes a single thesis from the founder's books and papers and works it through a concrete senior-hiring problem, with the source work cited as the canonical ground.
Applied research is by Alessio Montaruli and the KiTalent Research team. Each piece names and links the source work it applies, so the argument can be traced from the concrete hiring problem back to the position paper and, beneath it, to the book Koinonia.
The practitioner volume behind this tier is Interviewing for Skills and for Identity, which develops the two-register method at book length: what to ask, what to verify, what to write down, and what to sign.
For the underlying arguments, see Research Papers and the founder Editorials.
9 editorials, in reverse chronological order
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No. i.
Interviewing for Skills and for Identity
The book-length treatment these analyses draw on. Capability leaves verifiable traces; identity has to be encountered. Twenty-five chapters of interview architecture, reference method, scorecards and the signed recommendation — with a working instrument at the close of each chapter, and an honest account of where the rules run out.
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No. ii.
Signs Your Business Needs a New CFO
Most companies that need a new CFO do not have a finance problem. Eight signals, which of them are identity and which are capability, and which you can close without a search at all.
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No. iii.
Executive Search and Traditional Recruitment in Doha
The difference is not seniority but the question each process answers. Why a small, interconnected senior field changes how a search must be run, and when recruitment is the better instrument.
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No. iv.
How Retail Executive Search Reduces Hiring Risk
Risk falls when a process produces evidence about how a leader decides rather than what they have run. What a competent retail search actually does, and where search does not reduce risk at all.
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No. v.
How to Assess a Leader Beyond Competencies
Competency frameworks assess what a leader can do, not who they are in relation to your organisation. The two registers of a senior assessment, what identity evidence actually looks like, and when the framework alone is enough.
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No. vi.
The Market Map Is Not the Shortlist
A market map tells you who exists; a shortlist tells you who is validated, engaged and worth your time. Why the two get sold as one, and what actually happens in the distance between a name on a map and a person on a shortlist.
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No. vii.
Why Culture Fit Gets Missed in Executive Search
Culture fit is missed because it is assessed as a skill when it is a question of identity. Why the interview rewards the wrong signal, and what assessment that works looks like.
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No. viii.
What AI Can and Cannot Do in Executive Search
AI maps the executive market; it cannot judge the executive. Where algorithmic mapping helps, where it fails by kind not degree, and how to use it without the legal and brand risk.
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No. ix.
Why Executive Hires Fail in the First 18 Months
Senior hires rarely fail on capability. They fail on identity: values, motivation and operating style assessed with the wrong methods. A register-by-register analysis of the 18-month failure clock.
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