Action concepts for describing organised interaction

The main aim of this paper is to propose a set of action concepts useful for describing organised interaction. These action concepts focus on two distinctions: the distinction between direct and indirect action, and the distinction between successful and not necessarily successful action. The formal characterisation of these concepts is given by means of modal logic, following the same tradition in the logical characterisation of act descriptions as employed by Kanger (1972) and Porn (1970). The modal action operators proposed are also combined with a deontic logic and a conditional logic, in order to illustrate their application to the analysis of some simple organisations. The focus of interest is on the notion of transmission of agency, and on the characterisation of the conditions under which an organisation recognises that an agent has fulfilled the responsibilities assigned to him.