Does mission concreteness make a difference in nonprofit performance? Automated text analysis approach to the importance of concrete mission statements

Abstract

AbstractMission statements are important for the performance of nonprofit organizations (NPOs), but many of them are not concrete enough to influence nonprofit performance and prior research has studied the concreteness of mission statements in two divergent ways. We investigated how the two aspects of concrete mission statement influence internal and external stakeholders of NPOs differently and affect nonprofit performance. We first conducted an automated text analysis to determine the relationship between the concreteness of the 100 largest US NPOs' mission statements and organizational performance (Study 1). To validate the measure of the automated text analysis and reveal the relationship between the two aspects of concrete mission statements, we additionally conducted randomized controlled experiments with 76 professionals in the nonprofit field who were in charge of evaluating organizational performance (Study 2). Results of both studies suggest that concrete mission statements are positively related to organizational performance and that nonprofit professionals' perceived concreteness of mission statements drives their prediction of higher organizational performance. Theoretical and practical implications for the concreteness of NPOs' mission statements are discussed.