I'd say: the company which, if referring to a commercial organisation, and perhaps: the company who if referring to the somewhat old-fashioned term for 'the people one associates with', as in the question: 'who's the company that man's with?', but I'm not 100% certain on the second, and would prefer a second opinion.

I'm inclined to agree with odondon, but I would be quite relaxed about it. I would probably use "The company which ... ", but I wouldn't say that "The company who ... " was actually wrong (especially if you are thinking of the organisation as a group of people, which, of course, it is).
Furthermore, although I would not say "The company that ... ", I would not go so far as to say that that was wrong, either. It might strike me as as somehwat American usage, but I might not even notice it.
All in all, I don't think that this is very important, but, like odondon, I would be interested in other people's reactions.

In einer anderen Rubik wurde dieses Thema vor einigen Wochen schon einmal behandelt. Ich kann die Diskussion aber nicht finden. Vielleicht ist sie bei einem der Serverausfälle auch gelöscht worden.

@odondon irl: Du hast damals wertvolle Beiträge geliefert. Weißt du noch, wie der Betreff lautete bzw. in welcher Rubik die Anfrage gestellt wurde?

I refer you to "person, which?" below; thread started March 30.

I would recommend 'that.'

• The company that pleases its customers will succeed. (restrictive clause, cannot be omitted)
• The company, which had never had very high sales, finally declared bankruptcy last week. (nonrestrictive clause, can be omitted)
• The company which pleases its customers will succeed. (primarily British)
• *The company who (incorrect, as 'who' is for persons)

Here's the thread Bob mentioned. (Bob, in future could you please just go ahead and give the link? Standard practice here as a time-saving courtesy.)
  related discussion:person, which?

Though Martin is right that the rule isn't a hard-and-fast one and historically has often been ignored, I still agree with Bob that in AE, particularly among people who care about good style, 'which' should normally be reserved for nonrestrictive relative clauses, that is, clauses that can be omitted and therefore must be set off by commas.

I'd say "the company he keeps", or "what sort of company does he keep?" Company in this sense suggests a type of people, rather than a specific group. Your example of "who's the company he's with?" sounds artificial to me.

As to company as Firma, one might hear "who do you work for?", meaning what company do you work for? (Note that "whom" in spoken language is hardly used.) The answer would be "I work for IBM" or "The company I work for is IBM". (Note that this construction lacks a relative pronoun such as which or that). But you'd rarely hear: The company who....

I'm responding from an American perspective. I believe the answer for BE would be the same. However, on a different but related point, note that an American would typically use a company name as singular: "IBM has increased its profits this year"; while in Britain I believe they'd commonly say "IBM have increased their profits this year".

hm: thanks for making those points about defining clauses and links.

Can you or someone brief me on how to make the links, please? I wanted to do that in this case, but despite my best efforts to date, I have not figured out how you guys do it.

(Email replies accepted.)

Hi Bob C.,
The insertion of these links is very easy: in the browser window with te opened thread (or whatever website) you just mark the address (by clicking onto it), then copy it (control + C) - and with "control + V" it you can make it reappear whereever you like.
Have a nice day! (beautiful weather - think we live in the same area)

Sorry, Bob, should have realized willingness wasn't the issue.

As holger says, copy the address from the address line in your browser. If in doubt, copy it onto a temporary page first (like "Write Mail" in your e-mail program) and be sure it displays as a hyperlink (blue underlining) as soon as you type a space after it. (And if it's an internal LEO link, it's often a good idea to click on it again yourself and be sure it really opens.) If necessary, you can create the hyperlink yourself by shading the entire address, copying it, selecting a command like "Create Hyperlink," and pasting it into the field requested. However, note that LEO can't cope if you rename it.

Then all you have to do is include it in your post. The hyperlink (blue underlining) won't show in the LEO field in which you compose (or paste) your answer, but it should still work because LEO's own software recognizes as a hyperlink anything that starts with http:\ (in fact it may think that was one right there), automatically truncating external links with [...] and adding the rubric "Related Discussion" to internal forum links. (That is, when internal links work at all. After major renovation at LEO this past fall, lingering bugs still affect many older archived threads, but recent threads should be okay <knock wood>.)

Hope that helps; if not, speak up again. (-:

@Bob C, hm-us: I was referring to a different thread in a different forum (I think "Unsolved query - German missing". The discussion included a statement from odondon irl about the difference between "The company has ..." and "The company have ..."

Many thanks for the tips!

So here goes. Testing:

  related discussion:The company which oder who

Wow.

OK, that's good to know, and maybe it will help others as well.

Holger, aren't you in Germany? I'm in Toronto, though I lived most of my life in the U.S.

"who" im Englischen ist nur fuer Personen statthaft.

@ karin.hicks@btinternet.com

""who" im Englischen ist nur fuer Personen statthaft. "

I fear, you are almost, but not entirely correct. "Who" may also be used for pets.
I have never heard anyone use "which" when referring to, let's say their dog, cat, favourite cow, or what have you.
"Lebewesen" would be better than "Personen".

I would say that you can use "who" as a relative pronoun for any entity which you conceive of as having a personality. That can include a company, if that is how you perceive it.

So, jetzt habe ich die frühere Diskussion endlich gefunden:

  related discussion:the company, who is xy,... -- die Firma, welche xy ist,...

Well done Andi! I have to say that odondon's last posting to that earlier discussion was brilliant.