(How) Does discretion change over time? A contribution toward a dynamic view of managerial discretion

A quarter of a century ago Hambrick and Finkelstein (1987) called for work on the dynamics of managerial discretion. The present paper aims at developing ideas of such a dynamic view by integrating insights from research on cognition and learning into discretion theory, complementing established research on the role of context with a view that focuses on the manager as the driving force of discretion. We conceptualize discretion as the scope of options a manager may choose from. Accordingly, the cognitive concepts of awareness and attention are central building blocks. We argue that a manager may intentionally influence the degree of discretion by purposefully choosing the set of issues and options to be included in his or her strategic issue array. However, though it is the manager him- or herself who ultimately decides upon the allocation of his or her scarce attentional resources, we argue that this decision and, by that, the degree of managerial discretion is substantially affected by personal, relational, and situational factors. Understanding how these factors affect a manager's allocation of attention over time is imperative to understand the dynamics of managerial discretion.