Organizational participants are the most important actors in a business network. The car dealership, the bank, the school, and the insurance company are all examples of organizational participants. When we first think about a particular business network, we identify these participants, followed by the goods and services they provide to each other and end-consumers. These organizational participants provide the infrastructure for the business network—the people, processes, and technology that make it work.

While organizations are made up of individuals, they are conceptually quite separate to them. An organization has its own identity, and its own purpose. It exists in a very real sense, independently to the individuals which belong to it. Organizations provide business networks with a sense of permanence. While individuals within an organization may change over time, and the number of individuals within the organization may grow or shrink, and even different roles within the organization may come and go, the organization remains constant; it is a structure with a much longer lifetime than any individual's membership of it.

The final point to note about the nature of the relationship between individuals and their organization is that it is individuals who perform the functions of the organization, as defined by the individual's organizational role. When a bank makes a loan to a customer, it is performed by a bank employee on behalf of the bank. In this way, the individuals are the agents of the organization, and an individual's role determines the set of tasks it can perform. For example, a school teacher can set a homework assignment for a student, but it requires a school principal to hire a new teacher. In a nutshell, individuals act on behalf of the organization, and with the authority of that organization.