Parkinson's Law

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Parkinson's Law is the title of a satirical essay by the naval historian C. Northcote Parkinson which was published in The Economist in 1955, following the report of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service. Its notable findings were that: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. The number of workers within public administration tends to grow, regardless of the amount of work to be done. The essay starts by giving the first finding as a "commonplace observation" while the bulk of the essay discusses the second, which Parkinson detailed as due to "The Law of Multiplication of Subordinates" and "The Law of Multiplication of Work". The first finding has been called the personal version of the law and the second, which is not stated explicitly, the organizational version. It is the first sense which is now most commonly called Parkinson's Law. Despite their facetious origins, these findings have been widely adopted in management science and social psychology. The...

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