ABSTRACT
The ‘agency/structure debate’ refuses to lie down or quietly fade into obscurity. It raises fundamental questions about the nature of social reality, the manner in which it is conceptualised and the theoretical means most appropriate in explaining the relationship between its constituent elements. In raising unavoidable, and difficult, questions about the nature of and link between ‘human activity and its social contexts’ (Layder 1994: 5), the ‘agency/structure debate’ forces students of organisation to confront a set of issues that defines irrevocably the constitution of their subject matter and the analytical and methodological terms on which it is to be researched and explained (Reed 1988).
