ABSTRACT
We appear to have little difficulty in accepting that human individuals may act and be judged as individuals, or that individuals may act (perhaps in some ways differently) within organisations, but there is more controversy in the idea that individuals may lose their identity in the latter situation to the organisation, which then becomes the socially and morally relevant actor and agent in their place. The debate between adherents of individualism (organisations are reducible to their individual components) and those of holism (organisations may be regarded as distinct actors and agents) remains largely unresolved. The argument is developed here that a distinct organisational agency may be based upon an organisational or group rationality, which is of a different kind and character from that associated with individual human action, but derives from a structure of human interactions. Building upon that argument, it may be said that to qualify for a distinct identity and agency (in the sense of a capacity for moral and reflective action) organisations must satisfy criteria relating to both (a) structure and capacity for autonomous action and (b) the performance of a representative role. Such criteria correspond with elements of the definition of organisation set out in Chapter 2: a bounded, purposeful entity with an enduring structure, which is independent of the identity of particular individuals, though reliant on the participation of (anonymous) individuals. On this basis, organisations may be validly and convincingly regarded as distinct autonomous actors in the social domain and as distinct autonomous agents in the normative domain, and in that sense accountable and perhaps criminally responsible actors.
