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In an agency relationship, one party acts on behalf of another. It is curious that a concept that could not be more profoundly sociological does not have a niche in the sociological literature. This essay begins with the economics paradigm of agency theory, which casts a very long shadow over the social sciences, and then traces how these ideas diffuse to and are transformed (if at all) in the scholarship produced in business schools, political science, law, and sociology. I cut a swathe through the social fabric where agency relationships are especially prevalent and examine some of the institutions, roles, forms of social organization, deviance, and strategies of social control that deliver agency and respond to its vulnerabilities, and I consider their impact. Finally, I suggest how sociology might make better use of and contribute to agency theory.

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Research has shown that learning disabled (LD) children are likely to develop a maladaptive pattern of causal attributions. However, it is unclear whether LD children are more likely to differ from their peers in terms of a greater tendency to attribute their difficulties to insufficient ability or in terms of a greater tendency to blame external factors. The present study found that LD girls were significantly more likely than nondisabled girls to attribute their difficulties to insufficient ability, but they did not differ in their tendency to attribute their difficulties to external factors. In contrast, LD boys were significantly more likely than nondisabled boys to attribute their difficulties to external factors, but they did not differ from nondisabled boys in their tendency to attribute their difficulties to insufficient ability. The present study also examined the differential implications of these two attributional tendencies. Although the tendency to blame one's ability was negatively related to persistence on a reading task administered by a novel adult, the tendency to attribute one's difficulties to external factors did not show this negative relation.

In the control of stock fraud, criminal prosecution is the road not taken: only six of every hundred parties investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission ultimately stand in judgment before a criminal court. This paper examines the role of criminal prosecution in controlling securities violations. It traces the SEC enforcement process in which most stock swindlers are diverted from criminal prosecution and treated civilly or administratively or spared legal action entirely. It finds that the criminal process attracts the most significant offenses, but also those about which little else can be done. In this light, the paper reconsiders the controversial finding that upper status white-collar offenders fare no better and often worse than their lower status counterparts at criminal sentencing. It finds a double standard, but one with some surprising implications.