Decentralisation, Responsibility and Ethical Dilemmas

This outline paper stems from the shared interest of a criminologist and a scholar in business organisation in the problem of responsibility in the large and complex modern corporation. For the criminologist, this has a particular significance in the context of corporate crime; for the student of management, it opens up questions of decision making and control. For both, it raises considerations of business ethics as well as the function of law in regulating business practice. In particular, there is the central question of how an organisation can, per se, be held criminally liable, without the present requirement in English law, of identifying a ‘controlling mind’ Within it.