Toward a taxonomy of discretion in organizations

TL;DRAbstract

Discretion, defined as freedom of action or control over how one does their work, is a fundamental aspect of organizational behavior, with important consequences for both individuals and organizations. For individuals, psychologists have identified control as a fundamental human need; all people desire some measure of control (Depret & Fiske, 1993). For organizations, discretion is inevitable because it arises in any ambiguous or equivocal situation (Hambrick & Finkelstein, 1987), and it is these situations that shape organizational structures (March & Simon, 1958; Thompson, 1967; Williamson, 1994). Consistent with this fundamental importance, discretion has been shown to influence a vast range of outcomes, including corporate social performance (Aragon-Correa, Matias-Reche, & Senise-Barrio, 2004), strategic attention (Abrahamson & Hambrick, 1997), strategic persistence (Finkelstein & Hambrick, 1990), fairness (Hendrickson & Harrison, 1998), affirmative action (Weisman, 1994), knowledg

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