This thesis examines the associations between organisational slack, that pool of actual or potential cushion of resources of an organisation, and executive discretion - the executives’ latitude for strategic action. Bourgeois and Singh (1983), George (2005), Sharfman et al. (1988) and Sharma (2000) have referred to slack as having a discretionary dimension because its ‘ease of recovery’ varies depending on where it is gained from. For the obverse of this association, slack contributes to resource availability in the task environment and therefore executive discretion (Hambrick & Finkelstein, 1987). However until now, this bi-direction association has been largely unexplored empirically. This thesis contributes to both fields by bringing them together to examine and measure aspects of these interactions. These constructs are applied to the annual reports of U.S. firms by measuring industry level discretion using content analysis of presidents’ letters to shareholders and industry average slack using financial ratios. Correlations show that industries with higher levels of slack enjoy greater industry level discretion. However the associations between slack types and industry level discretion are not uniform suggesting that the discretionary dimension of slack is influenced by the task environment and industry context. The present study replicated Keegan and Kabanoff’s (2007) method to examine slack within industries but could not extend their results to available and recoverable slack, which suggest a curvilinear relationship between potential slack and executive discretion. The limited sub-industry results offer opportunity for further research as does the idea of applying the same research question to the organisational and individual level studies of different cohorts of firms and industries. Future efforts should also improve the measurement of the slack construct.

Desde hace dos décadas, varias organizaciones de renombre internacional se han visto involucradas en fraudes financieros, lo que ha perjudicado su imagen y ha dejado en evidencia posibles deficiencias de supervisión por parte del equipo de auditoría interna. Asimismo, estos actos reflejan la falta de ética en la toma de decisiones por parte de los directivos. El presente trabajo de investigación tiene como principal objetivo analizar los modelos que ayudan a medir la discrecionalidad directiva en las empresas corporativas. En tal sentido, se ha planteado la siguiente interrogante: ¿cómo se puede medir la discrecionalidad directiva en las empresas corporativas? Para resolver esta interrogante, se ha revisado diversos estudios relacionados al respecto. Asimismo, se han definido algunos conceptos desarrollados por diversos autores relacionados con la discrecionalidad directiva y el problema de agencia. Así, en este trabajo se han revisado diversas posturas de investigadores sobre los modelos que miden las prácticas discrecionales y, de igual forma, se han revisado los resultados de estudios empíricos con el propósito de analizar la efectividad en la medición de la discrecionalidad directiva. Tomando en cuenta los modelos usados por los autores para la aplicación de sus muestras, se puede concluir que el método más común para medir la discrecionalidad y minimizar el riesgo de manipulación de resultados son los ajustes por devengo. Si bien existen varios modelos de medición, muchos autores coinciden en que uno de los más utilizados es el modelo de Jones; por ello, en esta investigación, se analiza tanto la versión original como la versión modificada. / Over the past two decades, several internationally renowned organizations have been involved in financial fraud, damaging their image and exposing potential oversight deficiencies by the internal audit team. Likewise, these acts reflect the lack of ethics in decision-making by managers. The main objective of this research work is to analyze the models that help to measure managerial discretion in corporate companies. In this sense, the following question has been raised: how can managerial discretion be measured in corporate companies? To resolve this question, various related studies have been reviewed in this regard. Likewise, some concepts developed by various authors related to managerial discretion and the agency problem have been defined. Thus, in this work, various positions of researchers on the models that measure discretionary practices have been reviewed and, in the same way, the results of empirical studies have been reviewed with the purpose of analyzing the effectiveness in the measurement of managerial discretion. Taking into account the models used by the authors for the application of their samples, it can be concluded that the most common method to measure discretion and minimize the risk of manipulation of results are accrual adjustments. Although there are several measurement models, many authors agree that one of the most used is the Jones model; Therefore, in this research, both the original version and the modified version are analyzed. / Trabajo de Suficiencia Profesional