Agency may refer to:

Organizations

Institution Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...

, governmental or others **

Advertising agency An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generally ...

or marketing agency, a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients ** Employment agency, a business that serves as a representative, acting on behalf of another **

Government agency A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an administrati ...

, a department of a local or national government responsible for the oversight and administration of a specific function ***

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

, nicknamed "The Agency" **

International agency An international organization or international organisation (see spelling differences), also known as an intergovernmental organization or an international institution, is a stable set of norms and rules meant to govern the behavior of states an ...

, an inter-governmental body **

News agency A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswir ...

Talent agency Talent has two principal meanings: * Talent (measurement), an ancient unit of mass and value * Talent (skill), a group of aptitudes useful for some activities; talents may refer to aptitudes themselves or to possessors of those talents Talent may ...

Social science

* Agency, the abstract principle that autonomous beings, agents, are capable of acting by themselves; see

Autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one' ...

Agency (law) The law of agency is an area of commercial law dealing with a set of contractual, quasi-contractual and non-contractual fiduciary relationships that involve a person, called the agent, that is authorized to act on behalf of another (called the ...

, a person acting on behalf of another person * Agency (moral), capacity for making moral judgments *

Agency (philosophy) Agency is the capacity of an actor to act in a given environment. It is independent of the moral dimension, which is called moral agency. In ''sociology'', an agent is an individual engaging with the social structure. Notably, though, the prima ...

, the capacity of an autonomous agent to act, relating to action theory in philosophy *

Agency (psychology) In psychology, agents are goal-directed entities that are able to monitor their environment to select and perform efficient means-ends actions that are available in a given situation to achieve an intended goal. Agency, therefore, implies the abilit ...

, the ability to recognize or attribute agency in humans and non-human animals * Agency (sociology), the ability of social actors to make independent choices, relating to action theory in sociology *

Agency and structure In the social sciences there is a standing debate over the primacy of structure or agency in shaping human behaviour. ''Structure'' is the recurrent patterned arrangements which influence or limit the choices and opportunities available. '' Agency ...

, ability of an individual to organize future situations and resource distribution

Places

* Agency (administrative division) * Agency, Iowa, US *

Agency, Missouri Agency is a village in Buchanan County, Missouri, United States. The population was 684 at the 2010 census. It is part of the St. Joseph, MO– KS Metropolitan Statistical Area. History Agency was laid out in 1865. It was formerly the site ...

, US * Agency, Montana, US * Agency Township (disambiguation), name of townships in four US states

Arts, entertainment and media

* ''Agency'' (novel), a science fiction novel by William Gibson * ''The Agency'' (comics) * '' The Agency: Covert Ops'', a spy-themed massively multiplayer online shooter video game

Film and television

* ''The Agency'' (film), a 1980 Canadian film starring Lee Majors * ''The Agency'' (2001 TV series), an American action-drama * ''The Agency'' (2007 TV series), an American reality series * '' Morgana Robinson's The Agency'', a 2016 British TV mockumentary * The Agency, a fictional government organization in the 2000 TV series '' The Invisible Man'' * ''Agency'' (South Korean TV series), a 2023 television series

Other uses

* Agency in Mormonism, "the privilege of choice... introduced by God" *

Agency security Agency securities are specific securities that are issued by either Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the Federal Home Loan Banks. These securities are backed by mortgage loans, and due to their creation from these particular corporatio ...