No, its not.

Its more like a grouping of a subset of the actions of a group of people in some contexts, and a shared subset of the interests of a different (narrower, but overlapping) group of people in others.

But its not generally simply a way of referencing a group of people.

No, that's exactly what I said it was not.

A subset of the actions of a group of people, or a subset of the shared interests of a group of people, is not a group of people.

A subset of the actions or interests, not a subset of the group of people (the latter would, indeed, be just a different group of people, but isn't what I said.)

> If people somehow magically disappeared, the corporate entity would disappear at the exact same time – it's the same thing.

No, its not the same thing.

If North America disappeared, all the piles of dog feces in North America would also disappear, but the piles of dog feces are not the same thing as North America.

Direction is the word you are struggling to find, but it is the direction of the group of people. You have not added anything drawing attention to this so-called subset. It changes nothing about the discussion. It's just silly wordplay to divert our attention from your grievous error at the onset.