Group Agency and Egalitarian Corporate Structure: The Epistemic, Incentive, and Control Dimensions
ABSTRACT What constitutes a good corporate agent? The article answers this question by critically applying List and Pettit's theory of group agency, which emphasizes three crucial dimensions of organizational design: epistemic quality, incentive compatibility, and control. Integrating empirical insights from sociology and organizational studies, we argue that List and Pettit's framework implies a non‐contingent relationship between good corporate agents and egalitarian structures. This article makes two contributions: (1) it enriches debates in the political theory of the firm by clarifying how group agency concepts impact the normative understanding of corporate structures; (2) it strengthens the normative foundations of List and Pettit's framework by situating their theoretical criteria within empirical evidence of organizational effectiveness.
Authors
- Chi Leung Kwok (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3754-2447)
- Chris Man‐Kong Li
Institutions
- Lingnan University (HK)
- Hang Seng University of Hong Kong (HK)
- University of Hong Kong (HK)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of Applied Philosophy
- Published
- 2026-01-22
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/japp.70071
- Primary Topic
- Management and Organizational Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00