While a corporation may be characterized as a "person" capable of a crime, basing fault on the same psychological processes as apply to people raises problematic issues with respect to moral turpitude, the mens rea element of offences and defences.
A realistic approach to making corporations accountable requires an exploration of the decision-making structure of companies and a degree of innovation in adapting the elements that define individual, human culpability. All the traditional common law theories, as well as newer statutory models, entail a definition of the links between the criminal act and the decisions of management as it represents the corporate entity.