Editing Peter principle (section)

==Research and related works==
Other commenters made observations similar to the Peter principle long before Peter's research. [[Gotthold Ephraim Lessing]]'s 1763 play ''[[Minna von Barnhelm]]'' features an army sergeant who shuns the opportunity to move up in the ranks, saying "I am a good sergeant; I might easily make a bad captain, and certainly an even worse general. One knows from experience." Similarly, [[Carl von Clausewitz]] (1780–1831) wrote that "there is nothing more common than to hear of men losing their energy on being raised to a higher position, to which they do not feel themselves equal."<ref name=Grudin>{{cite journal |last1=Grudin |first1= Jonathan |date=January–February 2016 |title= The Rise of Incompetence |journal= Interactions |volume= 23 |issue=1 |pages=6–7 |doi= 10.1145/2854002|doi-access= free }}</ref> Spanish philosopher [[José Ortega y Gasset]] (1883–1955) virtually enunciated the Peter principle in 1910, "All public employees should be demoted to their immediately lower level, as they have been promoted until turning incompetent."<ref name=Grudin/><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.laopinion.es/opinion/2010/11/07/umbral-incompetencia/312847.html|title=En el umbral de la incompetencia|language=es|work=La Opinión|access-date=November 30, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1= Christian|first1= Brian|last2= Griffiths|first2=Tom |year= 2016 |title= Algorithms to Live By |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yvaLCgAAQBAJ&q=%22peter+principle%22&pg=PA219|publisher= Henry Holt and Company|page= 219|isbn= 978-1627790376}}</ref>

A number of scholars have engaged in research interpreting the Peter principle and its effects. In 2000, [[Edward Lazear]] explored two possible explanations for the phenomenon. First is the idea that employees work harder to gain a promotion, and then slack off once it is achieved. The other is that it is a statistical process: workers who are promoted have passed a particular benchmark of productivity based on factors that cannot necessarily be replicated in their new role, leading to a Peter principle situation. Lazear concluded that the former explanation only occurs under particular compensation structures, whereas the latter always holds up.<ref name=Lazear>{{cite web|first= Edward P.|last= Lazear|author-link= Edward Lazear|date= October 12, 2000|title= The Peter Principle: Promotions and Declining Productivity|url= http://www-siepr.stanford.edu/Papers/pdf/00-04.pdf|publisher= [[Hoover Institution]] and [[Stanford Graduate School of Business|Graduate School of Business]], [[Stanford University]]|access-date= March 23, 2009|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20180219173718/http://www-siepr.stanford.edu/Papers/pdf/00-04.pdf|archive-date= February 19, 2018|url-status= dead}}</ref>

Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo (2010) used an [[agent-based modelling]] approach to simulate the promotion of employees in a system where the Peter principle is assumed to be true. They found that the best way to improve efficiency in an enterprise is to promote people randomly, or to [[Short list|shortlist]] the best and the worst performer in a given group, from which the person to be promoted is then selected randomly.<ref name=Pluchino>{{cite journal |first1= Alessandro |last1= Pluchino |first2= Andrea |last2= Rapisarda |first3= Cesare |last3= Garofalo |journal=[[Physica A]] |volume= 389 |title= The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study |issue= 3 |pages= 467–472 |year= 2010 |arxiv= 0907.0455 |bibcode= 2010PhyA..389..467P  |doi= 10.1016/j.physa.2009.09.045|s2cid= 9077554 }}</ref> For this work, they won the 2010 edition of the parody [[Ig Nobel Prize]] in [[management science]].<ref>{{cite journal|year=2010 |title=The 2010 Ig Nobel Prize Winners |journal=[[Annals of Improbable Research]] |volume=16 |issue=6 |pages=10–13|url=http://improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume16/v16i6/AIR_16-6_screen.pdf }}</ref> Later work has shown that firms that follow the Peter Principle may be disadvantaged, as they may be overtaken by competitors, or may produce smaller revenues and profits;<ref name=Udhayanan>{{cite journal |first1= Prateksha |last1= Udhayanan |first2= Swasti |last2= Mishra |first3= Shrisha |last3= Rao |journal=[[Physica A]] |volume= 583 |title= Firm dynamics and employee performance management in duopoly markets |issue= 126298 |year= 2021 |page= 126298 |doi= 10.1016/j.physa.2021.126298 |bibcode= 2021PhyA..58326298U |s2cid= 238731817 }}</ref> as well why success most often is a result of luck rather than talent—work which earned Pluchino and Rapisarda a second [[List of Ig Nobel Prize winners|Ig Nobel Prize]] in 2022.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2006-08-01 |title=Past Ig Winners |url=https://improbable.com/ig/winners/ |access-date=2022-09-16 |website=improbable.com |language=en-US}}</ref>

In 2018, professors Alan Benson, Danielle Li, and Kelly Shue analyzed sales workers' performance and promotion practices at 214 American businesses to test the veracity of the Peter principle. They found that these companies tended to promote employees to a management position based on their performance in their previous position, rather than based on managerial potential. Consistent with the Peter principle, the researchers found that high performing sales employees were likelier to be promoted, and that they were likelier to perform poorly as managers, leading to considerable costs to the businesses.<ref>{{cite journal |last1= Benson|first1=Alan |last2= Li |first2=Danielle|last3=Shue|first3=Kelly |date= February 2018 |title= Promotions and the Peter Principle |url= http://www.nber.org/papers/w24343 |journal= NBER Working Paper |volume=24343 |pages= 1–54|doi= 10.3386/w24343 |access-date= May 22, 2018|doi-access= free }}</ref><ref>Benson, Alan, Danielle Li, and Kelly Shue. 2019 April 24. "[https://voxeu.org/article/promotions-and-peter-principle Promotions and the Peter Principle]." ''[[Vox EU]]''.</ref><ref name=":0" />

The Peter principle inspired [[Scott Adams]], creator of the comic strip ''[[Dilbert]]'', to develop a similar concept, the [[Dilbert principle]]. The Dilbert principle holds that incompetent employees are promoted to management positions to get them out of the workflow. The idea was explained by Adams in his 1996 business book ''The Dilbert Principle'', and it has since been analyzed alongside the Peter principle. João Ricardo Faria wrote that the Dilbert principle is "a sub-optimal version of the Peter principle," and leads to even lower profitability than the Peter principle.<ref>{{cite journal |last= Faria |first=João Ricardo |date= January 2000 |title= An Economic Analysis of the Peter and Dilbert Principles|url= http://www.finance.uts.edu.au/research/wpapers/wp101.pdf|journal= UTS Working Papers|volume=101  |pages= 13–14 |issn=1036-7373|access-date= October 5, 2018}}</ref>

Some authors refer to the phenomenon they have observed as the [[Paula principle]]: that the Peter principle applies mostly to male employees, while female employees are significantly less likely to be promoted than their male colleagues. Therefore women tend to be kept in positions that are below their abilities. They state that this discrimination against women affects all hierarchical levels and not just top positions. The name is a play on words with those of the apostles Peter and Paul.<ref>Tom Schuller: [https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/10463/1/equality-gender.pdf ''Gender and skills in a changing economy.''] UK Commission for Employment and Skills, September 2011.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1= Hede|first1=Andrew |date= 1994 |title= The glass ceiling metaphor: Towards a theory of managerial inequity |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20201104091016/https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andrew_Hede/publication/272566257_The_'glass_ceiling'_metaphor_Towards_a_theory_of_managerial_inequity/links/54e93ff30cf2f7aa4d533516/The-glass-ceiling-metaphor-Towards-a-theory-of-managerial-inequity.pdf |journal= Canberra Bulletin of Public Administration |pages= 79–85 |issue=76 |access-date= April 19, 2025 }}</ref>