# Position papers

- URL: https://kitalent.com/research
- Language: en
- Family: tier_index
- Description: Position papers with academic grounding on executive hiring assessment. Capability-identity distinction in senior search.

## Page Content

# Position papers

The research published here develops the firm's position on what makes senior hiring succeed or fail. Three converging papers, written from three distinct research traditions, establish the same operational distinction: capability is what a person can do, identity is who they are in relation to a specific organizational world, and the two require different forms of evidence. The first paper grounds the distinction in organizational psychology and the person-environment fit literature. The second grounds it in phenomenological philosophy, drawing on Heidegger's analysis of public and situated intelligibility. The third grounds it in analytic philosophy, drawing on category mistake, competence without comprehension, and the limits of symbolic representation. Together they explain why, in senior search, AI maps the field while consultants read the candidate.

Position papers are produced slowly and deliberately. They are written under the founder's byline as KiTalent position papers, with academic grounding rather than peer review. Each paper is final, peer-citable, and authored by Alessio Montaruli.

For the more accessible versions of these arguments, see the corresponding pieces under Editorials. Each research paper links to its companion editorial in the closing notes.