IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mpg/wpaper/2010_25.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Job Assignment with Multivariate Skills

Author

Listed:
  • Stefanie Brilon

    (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the job assignment problem faced by a firm when workers’ skills are distributed along several dimensions and jobs require different skills to varying extent. I derive optimal assignment rules with and without slot constraints, and show that under certain circumstances workers may get promoted although in their new job they are expected to be less productive than in their old job. This can be interpreted as a version of the Peter Principle which states that workers get promoted up to their level of incompetence.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefanie Brilon, 2010. "Job Assignment with Multivariate Skills," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2010_25, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    • Handle: RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2010_25
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.coll.mpg.de/pdf_dat/2010_25online.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sanford J. Grossman & Richard E. Kihlstrom & Leonard J. Mirman, 1977. "A Bayesian Approach to the Production of Information and Learning By Doing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 533-547.
    2. Tor Eriksson & Jaime Ortega, 2006. "The Adoption of Job Rotation: Testing the Theories," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 59(4), pages 653-666, July.
    3. Sattinger, Michael, 1993. "Assignment Models of the Distribution of Earnings," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 831-880, June.
    4. Agrawal, Anup & Knoeber, Charles R. & Tsoulouhas, Theofanis, 2006. "Are outsiders handicapped in CEO successions?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 619-644, June.
    5. Jed DeVaro & Hodaka Morita, 2013. "Internal Promotion and External Recruitment: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(2), pages 227-269.
    6. James A. Fairburn & James M. Malcomson, 2001. "Performance, Promotion, and the Peter Principle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(1), pages 45-66.
    7. Robert Gibbons & Michael Waldman, 2006. "Enriching a Theory of Wage and Promotion Dynamics inside Firms," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 59-108, January.
    8. Chan, William, 1996. "External Recruitment versus Internal Promotion," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(4), pages 555-570, October.
    9. Christina Gathmann & Uta Schönberg, 2010. "How General Is Human Capital? A Task-Based Approach," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(1), pages 1-49, January.
    10. Kate Antonovics & Limor Golan, 2012. "Experimentation and Job Choice," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(2), pages 333-366.
    11. Jaime Ortega, 2001. "Job Rotation as a Learning Mechanism," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(10), pages 1361-1370, October.
    12. Irene Valsecchi, 2000. "Job Assignment and Promotion," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 31-51, February.
    13. Edward P. Lazear, 2004. "The Peter Principle: A Theory of Decline," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(S1), pages 141-163, February.
    14. Bruce C. Greenwald, 1986. "Adverse Selection in the Labour Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(3), pages 325-347.
    15. Robert Gibbons & Michael Waldman, 2004. "Task-Specific Human Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 203-207, May.
    16. Michael Waldman, 2003. "Ex Ante versus Ex Post Optimal Promotion Rules: The Case of Internal Promotion," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(1), pages 27-41, January.
    17. Joao Ricardo Faria, 2000. "An Economic Analysis of the Peter and Dilbert Principles," Working Paper Series 101, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    18. Demougin, Dominique & Siow, Aloysius, 1994. "Careers in Ongoing Hierarchies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1261-1277, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brilon, Stefanie, 2015. "Job assignment with multivariate skills and the Peter Principle," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 112-121.
    2. Jed DeVaro & Antti Kauhanen & Nelli Valmari, 2019. "Internal and External Hiring," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 72(4), pages 981-1008, August.
    3. Xin Jin, 2014. "The Signaling Role of Not Being Promoted: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 0314, University of South Florida, Department of Economics.
    4. Jin, Xin, 2014. "The Signaling Role of Note Being Promoted: Theory and Evidence," MPRA Paper 58484, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Michael Waldman, 2012. "Theory and Evidence in Internal LaborMarkets [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    6. Eric W. Chan & Jeremy B. Lill & Victor S. Maas, 2023. "Promote Internally or Hire Externally? The Role of Gift Exchange and Performance Measurement Precision," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 493-530, May.
    7. Takii, Katsuya & Sasaki, Masaru & Wan, Junmin, 2020. "Synchronized job transfer and task-specific human capital," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    8. Hakenes, Hendrik & Katolnik, Svetlana, 2017. "On the incentive effects of job rotation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 424-441.
    9. Waldman, Michael, 2013. "Classic promotion tournaments versus market-based tournaments," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 198-210.
    10. Anja Schöttner & Veikko Thiele, 2010. "Promotion Tournaments and Individual Performance Pay," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 699-731, September.
    11. Oyer, Paul & Schaefer, Scott, 2011. "Personnel Economics: Hiring and Incentives," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 20, pages 1769-1823, Elsevier.
    12. Bertheau, Antoine, 2021. "Employer Search Behavior: Reasons for Internal Hiring," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    13. Mario Bossler & Philipp Grunau, 2020. "Asymmetric information in external versus internal promotions," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(6), pages 2977-2998, December.
    14. Sasaki, Masaru & Takii, Katsuya & Wan, Junmin, 2012. "Horizontal Transfer and Promotion: New Evidence and an Interpretation from the Perspective of Task-Specific Human Capital," IZA Discussion Papers 6486, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Carl Sanders & Christopher Taber, 2012. "Life-Cycle Wage Growth and Heterogeneous Human Capital," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 399-425, July.
    16. Suman Ghosh & Michael Waldman, 2010. "Standard promotion practices versus up‐or‐out contracts," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(2), pages 301-325, June.
    17. Edward P. Lazear & Paul Oyer, 2012. "Personnel Economics [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    18. Alan Benson & Danielle Li & Kelly Shue, 2019. "Promotions and the Peter Principle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(4), pages 2085-2134.
    19. Pawel Sobkowicz, 2010. "Dilbert-Peter Model of Organization Effectiveness: Computer Simulations," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 13(4), pages 1-4.
    20. DeVaro, Jed, 2011. "Using "opposing responses" and relative performance to distinguish empirically among alternative models of promotions," MPRA Paper 35175, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    job assignment; worker selection; internal hiring; Peter Principle; slot constraints; multi-dimensional skills;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • M51 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2010_25. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Marc Martin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mppggde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.