A newly published academic study has cast a revealing light on the internal workings of the promotion systems used by the Big Four professional services firms — Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and EY — suggesting that these ostensibly merit-based mechanisms depend far less on objective measures of performance than on intangible forces such as internal politics, personal alliances, and the willingness of managers to stake their own reputations on the success of their protégés. What is traditionally characterized as an environment of pure meritocracy, in which talent and consistent excellence determine progression, may in practice operate as a complex social and political ecosystem where the quality of one’s work is only one of many factors in the climb toward partnership.
Inside these global firms, auditors undergo continuous evaluation that theoretically provides a clear and transparent record of their competence. After every client engagement, supervisors assign performance grades — typically on a scale from A to D — across multiple dimensions such as technical proficiency, leadership potential, teamwork, and relationship management with clients. On paper, this steady accumulation of measurable data is meant to yield an objective judgment of who deserves promotion in the firms’ famously unforgiving “up-or-out” structure, where employees must either advance through the ranks or exit the organization. In principle, this system should reward those who consistently exceed expectations while sidelining or releasing those who fail to meet defined benchmarks.
In reality, however, the inner workings of the promotion process appear to deviate sharply from these ideals. A team of researchers from KEDGE Business School, ISG, and the University of Cambridge gained rare access to the decision-making process of two promotion committees within a major Big Four firm’s Paris office. Over a period spanning six years, from 2015 to 2021, they observed nearly six and a half hours of deliberations and conducted a total of sixty-one interviews with forty-nine auditors and managers, allowing them to reconstruct the subtle and often opaque dynamics that govern advancement. Their findings challenge one of the industry’s most deeply held assumptions: that high performance naturally and inevitably leads to upward mobility.
Instead, their analysis portrays these committees not as detached panels weighing objective criteria, but as politically charged arenas where influence, negotiation, and personal advocacy frequently take precedence over empirical evidence. According to the study, managers often engage in overt lobbying on behalf of their chosen candidates, trading favors or deploying organizational influence to ensure that individuals within their network rise faster. The committees, rather than merely compiling the annual evaluations, routinely reopen and debate these assessments, sometimes rescinding or recasting performance scores that had been presented as unambiguous measures of merit. In heated discussions, auditors who had previously been given favorable ratings might be downgraded when their superiors confessed that earlier evaluations were “too generous” or based on incomplete observation. Conversely, employees with more modest written assessments could find themselves promoted beyond peers with higher scores thanks to the impassioned defense of a politically powerful manager — or the strategic silence of competitors unwilling to expend political capital opposing them.
Thomas Roulet, professor of organizational sociology and leadership at the University of Cambridge and one of the study’s authors, noted a striking paradox: major audit firms often view themselves as paragons of fairness and transparency. However, the collective nature of both their daily work and the evaluative process inherently introduces opacity and politics, undermining the very values they seek to uphold. Publicly, the firms maintain that promotions are equitably tied to talent and performance, yet the study’s observations suggest that the human element of advocacy and reputation management is just as critical — if not more so — than measurable achievement.
When asked to respond, EY, Deloitte, and PwC declined to comment on the report’s findings. KPMG, for its part, referred to its 2024 Transparency Report, which asserts that the company’s approach to promotions and compensation remains data-driven, equitable, and closely aligned with market realities and structured performance reviews. Nevertheless, the research calls into question whether these statements accurately reflect what transpires in practice.
The study also highlights another underappreciated dimension of this organizational dynamic: auditors are not the only individuals undergoing scrutiny. Supervisors themselves are continuously evaluated by their peers and senior committees, meaning that every judgment they render on a subordinate carries the potential to affect their own standing. This layered structure of accountability creates strong incentives for managers to align their appraisals with what they believe senior partners wish to see rather than offering fully independent assessments. One senior manager interviewed admitted that his decision to lobby for a particular employee’s promotion was not only about preserving talent but also about protecting his reputation; he feared being perceived as someone who “overestimates” those under his mentorship. As the researchers point out, this recursive evaluation structure — effectively an “evaluation of evaluations” — transforms the process into an exercise in risk management, where maintaining credibility may overshadow honest recognition of achievement.
Such a system, the authors argue, invites questions about whether promotion committees truly serve their intended purpose. The result is a culture where the perception of fairness erodes, and many employees internalize a sense of arbitrariness in career progression. As Roulet observed, when managers either lack political clout or decline to expend it, even undeniably high-performing auditors can find themselves trapped at the same organizational tier, receiving less recognition than their demonstrable performance would warrant. This imbalance not only generates frustration but also fosters a lasting sense of injustice — a feeling that diligence alone no longer guarantees advancement.
Roulet emphasizes that, despite this imperfect system, Big Four firms do still recognize merit and effort to some degree. Yet paradoxically, when nearly everyone in the organization demonstrates exceptional competence, differentiating true excellence becomes almost impossible, magnifying the impact of politics and sponsorship.
The role of internal politics in career progression, while long acknowledged in most corporate contexts, takes on a particularly institutionalized form within the Big Four’s partnership model. These firms operate as limited liability partnerships (LLPs), where equity partners collectively shape strategy and share in annual profits. Climbing to that level demands far more than technical mastery; it requires an ability to cultivate robust internal networks, attract influential mentors, and secure client relationships that translate into tangible business growth. As executive recruiter James O’Dowd once noted, technical prowess alone rarely suffices: without deliberate investment in relationship-building and political navigation, even the most skilled professionals will advance more slowly than their socially adept peers.
This inherently competitive environment has become even more constrained in recent years. Slowing revenue growth, economic pressures, and accelerating technological disruption — particularly from artificial intelligence — have tightened the pipeline for promotions. In a 2024 internal communication, Deloitte’s UK branch disclosed that only one-quarter of its workforce would be promoted in that cycle, down from 28% the previous year. The memo explicitly acknowledged a “particularly challenging year” in which financial performance fell short of expectations, underscoring how macroeconomic and technological shifts further amplify the political dimension of advancement within these firms.
Taken together, the study paints a nuanced and unsettling portrait of life inside some of the world’s largest professional services firms — institutions that pride themselves on objectivity and integrity but may, in practice, be governed by subtler calculations of personal allegiance and reputation management. It suggests that, for ambitious auditors, mastering the formal mechanics of performance is only half the battle; understanding and engaging with the unspoken politics of promotion may be equally essential to reaching the top.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/big-four-promotions-hinge-on-politics-not-merit-researchers-say-2025-12
