agency
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Related to agency: Agency theory, Job agency
agency
1. a business or other organization providing a specific service
2. the place where an agent conducts business
3. the business, duties, or functions of an agent
4. one of the administrative organizations of a government
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005
agency
- the power of ACTORS to operate independently of the determining constraints of SOCIAL STRUCTURE. The term is intended to convey the volitional, purposive nature of human activity as opposed to its constrained, determined aspects. Although utilized in widely different ways, it is especially central in METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM, ETHNOMETHODOLOGY, PHENOMENOLOGY, SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM. The importance of human intention (and possibly also FREE WILL) thus emphasized, places the individual at the centre of any analysis and raises issues of moral choice and political capacity The political problematic is expressed by GOULDNER counterposing ‘man on his back’ with ‘man fighting back’ (1973), but the classic essay is Dawe's (1971) ‘The Two Sociologies’.
- any human action, collective or structural as well as individual, which ‘makes a difference’ to a social outcome; thus, for GIDDENS (1984), agency is equivalent to POWER. In this way Giddens opposes any simple polarization of'S tructure’ and ‘agency’. This is related to his view that STRUCTURE must be seen as ‘enabling’ as well as ‘constraining’ (see also STRUCTURE AND AGENCY, DUALITY OF STRUCTURE).
Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000
agency
1. A relationship by which one party, usually the agent, is empowered to enter into binding transactions affecting the legal rights of another party, usually called the principal, as, for example, entering into a contract or buying or selling property in his name or on his behalf.
2. An administrative branch of government (federal, state, or local).
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Agency
a civil law contract under which one party, the agent, binds himself to perform specified legal acts, such as acquisition of property or making payments, in the name and on the account of another party, the principal.
In the USSR, a contract of agency is one of the legal means to secure participation by citizens and organizations in civil turnover, such as conclusion of deals, through the assistance of other persons. The agent’s performance of legal acts with respect to third persons is based on his being given power of attorney. The principal is obligated to pay the agent a fee if this is provided for by law or the contract.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.