The level of responsibility an employee has within an organization might be understood as the time-span of discretion. An assembly-line worker has a day-to-day responsibility of performing their tasks efficiently, establishing collegial relations with their co-workers, learning new tasks. A Corporate Executive has a quarterly, yearly, and long-term responsibility to guide the growth of the organization, establish strategic relationships, engage with the regulatory and political frameworks within which the organization sits.
Further, time-span of discretion is related to the lived age of the individual. It is difficult for a 20 year-old to conceive of projects that might last a decade, as their lived experience of a decade is dominated by their experience as a child.
Developed by Elliot Jaques