What is a company if not a collection of people? I fail to see the difference between "rogue execs did it" and "the company did it", except for who gets thrown under the bus.
This statement is very meaningful in our current society, but one I wish sounded as insane as it is. I hope more people will think about the basic dogma of corporatism in the coming years...
Now imagine a legal entity represented and managed by several officials.
One of them heads into town, hires a bouncer to break a guys leg using the legal entities money, letterhead, and declares that this is work on behalf of the legal entity.
What should happen to the legal entity wrt acts commisioned in its name?
They denounce the official and sue to recover the money he spent without authorization?
What happens if someone with no affiliation of any kind with the company hires a bouncer to break a guy's leg using company letterhead and a sworn declaration that the work is commissioned on behalf of the company?
If he's an official representitive of the comapny he is the authorisation - we're not talking about the janitor here, we're talking about people with fiduciary responsibility between themselves and the company.
A lone wolf acting alone and falsifying documents is entirely different to a direct representative who is authorised to act on behalf of a company acting in bad faith.
Otherwise company officials are free to do henious crimes in the name of and on behalf of a company with no blowback on the company when those actions go pear shaped and get exposed.
Commanders are responsible for the actions of their men, companies are responsible for the actions of their principals.
A cook is a bad analogy for the rank held by the people involved. It's more like "son of the estate owner" or "head guard", except it's both of them because it was multiple execs. So, yes, the estate owner should be held accountable. And in most civilized societies, he or she would be.
I’m not great/don’t have time for a good metaphor dance, but that’s definitely a good one IMO! I guess I’d say the big difference is that you’re asking “what should happen to rogue execs”, and I was more interested in the general “who is culpable for the actions undertaken by an organization? Can the organization itself be culpable?”
In that metaphor, I see it like this: you live in a big estate that operates as some sort of business (wine, tourism, B&B, w/e), and your live-in cook breaks a guy’s leg while working for the estate (say, in a case of kitchen negligence, or just plain-old kitchen assault). I come along and propose that maybe you and your other owners should be forced to sell the estate or seriously rework things, since the assault was so bad.
In this world, do you share my intuition that at some level the estate itself should be made to answer for the actions of its employees on the job?
Beyond just fining corporations for damages, I feel there’s an unaccounted for intuitive sense that corporations should forfeit their autonomy and very existence in light of serious or repeated malfeasance, even if it wasn’t voted on by every member of the board before being enacted.
Ok maybe I did have time for a metaphor dance lol. Hope all this was somewhat clear!
That's not 'rogue' that's completely and utterly unhinged. It's a walk-in position, not a 10th generation family firm. Why would you even think about it?
They also allegedly hired someone to stalk and harass a couple who posted negative reviews of them online.