complementarity.

1. A relationship in which different things support, complete or enhance one another when combined.

2. A relationship in which different descriptions or experiments cannot be used together yet are both needed for a fuller account.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• complementarity between skills
• complementarity of inputs

On the page

Complementarity between skills improved the team’s performance without making the roles interchangeable.

The model allowed complementarity of inputs to affect the return from combining them.

Usage notes

Primary category: economics / business / social science. Forms: Usually uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: economic explanation, resource analysis, incentive analysis, comparison. Disciplines: economics, business, social science. Commonness: uncommon.