The Attribution Gap

An architecture theory of why enterprises systematically destroy the capabilities they depend on most — and how to detect, measure, and correct it.

Healthy, growing firms repeatedly eliminate capabilities they still need — not the weakest in a portfolio, but disproportionately some of the strongest. This series explains that paradox as an architecture and incentive problem, reduces it to observable signatures in records organizations already hold, and provides a rigorous programme for testing and correcting it.

Article 1 — The Attribution Gap and Capability Loss (Foundational Paper · v8)
Introduces the attribution gap: the widening distance between structural dependency on a capability and the formal credit assigned to it. Argues this is not negligence but the predictable result of incentives that penalize visibility of hard-to-manage dependencies. Distinguishes decay by neglect from decay by incentive — and identifies the second as the mechanism behind capability loss.

Article 2 — Measuring the Attribution Gap (Measurement Companion · v2)
The empirical companion. Reduces the theory’s three claims to measurable, non-circular observables and sequences the evidence work as a staged ladder, cheap-first. Specifies five signatures — from the can’t-kill-but-unlisted contradiction to the raised-and-ignored pattern — the cleanest discriminator between neglect and incentive as the driving mechanism.

Article 3 — [Title] (Working Paper · v_)
The governance response: what an organization that has diagnosed the attribution gap can structurally do about it.

The Attribution Gap

Attribution Gap Measurement Protocol

23 June 2026Updated 13 September 2026

Where Human Intelligence Debt and the Attribution Gap arrive at the same place — offered as an observation, not a proof. Document Status — Field Note · Series: The Attribution …

The Attribution Gap

Bridge: The Attribution Gap and Capability Loss

23 June 2026Updated 13 September 2026

Where Human Intelligence Debt and the Attribution Gap converge on a shared failure pattern — offered as an observation, not a proof. Document Status — Field Note · Series: The …

The Attribution Gap

The Attribution Gap and Capability Loss

23 June 2026Updated 13 September 2026

An architecture theory of why enterprise rationalization destroys the capabilities a firm most depends on — with a fenced conjecture toward the wider economy. Document Status — Foundational Paper · …