This study examines the emergence effects of task-general and affect-specific human capital in multi-project participation settings. Specifically, it investigates how the interactional nature of human capital—comprising cognitive and affective dimensions—shapes its emergence across deployment contexts with varying levels of contextual fit. Using archival data from a telecommunications firm in East China, the study analyzes personnel records and project participation logs from 746 engineers across 135 projects over a 13-month period. Employing multilevel contextual effects models, the study assesses the amplification and attenuation of links between human capital and performance outcomes. Additionally, it explores the moderating roles of multiple team membership and inter-project personnel-sharing networks. The findings reveal that affect-specific human capital demonstrates positive emergence (i.e., amplification) at the project level, whereas task-general human capital exhibits negative emergence (i.e., attenuation). Moreover, dynamic deployments via inter-project personnel-sharing networks suppress the positive emergence of affect-specific human capital and mitigate the negative emergence of task-general human capital. These findings highlight the importance of aligning human capital types with deployment contexts to optimize performance outcomes. By integrating interactional nature and contextual fit, this study extends human capital resource emergence theory, revealing negative emergence as the attenuation of links between individual human capital and performance outcomes. Overall, the study offers valuable insights for managing human capital in multi-teaming work environments.
