ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a case study of differential managerial decision situations in a large industrial plant. The management group of any industrial company is typically stratified into a hierarchy of positions of differing authority and responsibility—into what in the literature is referred to as the “scalar” process. A decision situation may be conceived as consisting of several major complexes of elements: the antecedent phase; the actual decision or choice from among alternatives; the execution and possible modification of the chosen course of action; and the verification of the correctness or incorrectness of the decision. Extension of time perspective in decision situations tends to vary directly with movement up the management hierarchy. In contrast, lower levels of management are typically involved in situations in which the occasion for decision, the phase of inquiry, the choice, and its administration follow one another in unbroken sequence.
