Activities of an Organization

Another hypothesis that bears consideration (see original post) is that an organization does not make any decision to act, nor undertake any action as an organization. The same can be said of business: the business itself does not decide or act. Decisions and actions of the individuals who compose the business decide or to act, and not all decisions or actions are made in interests of the business.

The interests that drive a decision, then, may be considered as a differentiating factor: if the intention of a decision to act is made with the intention of accomplishing a purpose that serves the interests of the business, rather than those of the individual making the decision, then the activities that precipitate from that decision can be considered to be "business activities."

However, that alone seems insufficient. There is some danger in assigning responsibility for an action to an individual or entity simply because they derive a benefit from that action. The example that comes to mind is in a charitable donation of funds that were gained by an unethical activity - are those that are benefited by the donation to be held accountable for the activities that generated the funds donated to them? This seems unreasonable, in that they had no part in making the decision of how the funds were generated.

It seems to me that authorization is also a factor, and is likely more important a factor than the receipt of benefits. If a charitable institution engaged in unethical activities to raise funds to support its operations, then it is to be held responsible for the decision to undertake those activities. It might also be suggested that if the institution encouraged others to undertake those actions for its benefit, it is to some degree responsible for providing that motivation.

But this runs afoul of the premise: that the institution does not decide or act, but certain individuals within the organization have made the decision to decide or act. And while the decision was made in the context of the institution, and for the benefit of the institution, the responsibility for the decision rests with an individual.

And the argument at this point comes full circle, because the individual who made the decision to participate in or encourage others to undertake an unethical action was motivated to do so to his desire to achieve some benefit for the institution.

I don't think that this has been fully explored, but it seem to be pointed toward the conclusion that the actions undertaken to achieve a certain goal can be said to be related from, or even to originate directly from, that goal. Hence any decision made to benefit a business precipitates actions that can be called "business activities."

This seems a matter of classification that may have no direct bearing on ethical responsibility: the decision-maker rather than the benefactor is responsible for the ethics of a decision, though it may be said that it is for the sake of the benefactor that the decision was made.