RAI-3’s Telecamere program interviewed the three random-promotion researchers. Here is the full, glorious interview, in Italian:
The trio — Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of the University of Catania, Italy — were awarded the 2010 Ig Nobel Prize in management for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random.
Their published study (which they followed up with others) is: “The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study,” Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo, Physica A, vol. 389, no. 3, February 2010, pp. 467-72.
BONUS: The researchers will be part of the upcoming Ig Nobel Tour of Scandinavia, in March.