Corporate Actions

Abstract

French’s position that the corporation directs its members to act in accord with its intentions can be represented as a vicarious relationship, by which the corporate members only act as the representatives of the organization and therefore their intentions and actions are attributed to the corporation. Larry May (1991: 320) defines vicarious action as “action ‘a’ done by ‘y’ but attributable to ‘x’ due to the fact that ‘y’ has been delegated to do ‘a’ as a substitute for ‘x’”. Vicarious action as stated is represented by a vicarious relationship or as it is often called a principal-agent relationship; in this case ‘x’ is the principal and ‘y’ is the agent of the relationship. The notion of vicarious agency is important for many advocates of corporate moral agency because the corporation’s lack of corporal existence requires human agents to causally affect the physical world. By representing the corporation as the principal in a vicarious relationship the corporation is able to satisfy the necessary moral agency condition of being able to perform an action by virtue of the acts performed by its constituents that are then attributed to the entity itself. French’s position can be represented in such a way that the corporation itself is the principal and the corporate members are the agents. The Corporate Internal Decision Structure (CIDS) (being the personality of the corporation) directs its employees into action in accord with its intentions and the actions of the employees are then attributed to the corporate entity.