Company Mission Statements Research Articles

CSR in the mission statements of Polish chemical companies (research report)

Purpose: The aim of the article is to answer the following research questions: Q1: What types of values do chemical companies in Poland declare in their mission statements? Q2: Do chemical companies in Poland declare values such as responsibility and ethics in their mission statements? Q3: Do these companies differ from other chemical companies1 in Poland in terms of declaring responsibility and ethics in mission statements? Design/methodology/approach: Independent research was carried out in 2021. Mission content in selected chemical organizations was analyzed. This was achieved by defining the coding scheme, testing it, cleaning and/or detailing it, and collecting, coding and analyzing the data. It was verified which values were displayed in those missions, using to this end the mission typology proposed by S. Cunningham, T.B. Cornwell and L.V. Coote. The hypotheses were verified using the Mann-Whitney U test (with continuity correction). Findings: Half of the chemical companies in Poland mention responsibility in their mission statement, while only one in eight (12.50%) mention ethics. Chemical companies in Poland involved in production and trade (i.e. those that pose a direct threat to the natural and social environment) are more likely to mention responsibility and ethics in their missions than service and/or trade companies in the same industry. Research limitations/implications: Only mission statements published on company websites were analyzed, perhaps excluding those that existed but were not posted online. The research was carried out only among Polish companies and so the conclusions should be limited to them only. To explore this trend in more depth, comparative analyses with companies from other industries and based in other countries should be conducted. This exploration would be facilitated by the use of techniques requiring direct contact, interviews, observations, surveys, case studies, etc. Originality/value: No research on the missions of chemical companies in Poland in terms of communicating specific types of values, or respective comparative studies, have been identified. In the course of this independent research, an attempt was made to partially fill this research gap. Keywords: chemical industry, mission statement, values, responsibility, ethics. Category of the paper: Research paper.

CSR in mission statements of Polish chemical industry companies (content analysis results)

Due to the specific nature of their activities, chemical companies are exposed to significant reputational risk. One way to reduce this risk is by implementing a CSR policy. CSR can be built into the company’s strategy and communicated as a mission statement. The purpose of the article was to determine: 1. the types of values which chemical industry companies in Poland display in their mission statements, 2. if chemical industry companies in Poland display CSR values in their mission statements, 3. if these companies differ from others operating in the chemical sector in Poland in terms of displaying CSR in mission statements. The research was carried out through the Iramuteq program, which enabled content analysis of the collected research material. A total of 197 missions were analyzed to find that less than half of the examined chemical companies in Poland display CSR-related values sensu stricto in mission statements. It was also found that chemical companies (production-commercial) highlighted CSR values in their mission statements more often than analagous service-trade companies.

Content Analysis of Vision and Mission Statements of Selected Petroleum Companies in Nigeria

A company's mission statement lays out the stated goals and strategies for meeting objectives. Still, a company's vision statement lays out the goals and aspirations it has for itself in the years ahead. Together, they form a synopsis of the organization's guiding principles and ideology. Terms used in the stated goals and objectives of a cross-section of Nigerian oil firms were the focus of this research. The literature that was deemed helpful to this study was analyzed. The research concluded that companies should ensure that their vision and mission statements include the following keywords which include: customer satisfaction, quality services and products, customer choice, value creation, and industry dominance. The staff and the public should use the company's vision and mission statements as slogans. Incorporating it into regular use among employees, customers, and other stakeholders is one way to achieve this goal. This would aid the company in maintaining a long-term perspective and fostering a culture of vision in key personnel.

Retraction Notice.

Three experiments investigated how framing diversity as all-inclusive affects recognition of racial injustice. Among Whites, viewing a company mission statement that specifically included Whites/European Americans when defining diversity or made no mention of diversity led to increased recognition of unfair treatment of racial minorities relative to viewing a standard multicultural diversity statement (Experiment 1). Decreased concern about losing out on resources to racial minorities mediated these effects. Among racial minorities, viewing a company statement that included Whites/European Americans or made no mention of diversity similarly increased recognition of unfair treatment of racial minorities, an effect mediated by minorities' reduced feelings of inclusion (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 replicated these effects using a more subtle manipulation of the all-inclusive diversity statement. These studies suggest defining diversity as inclusive of Whites/European Americans increases Whites' sensitivity to racial injustice against minorities but simultaneously increases racial minority Americans' concerns about exclusion and unfair treatment.

Differences in Readability, Keywords, and Orientation of Mission Statements of the Top 100 Korean and Top 100 US Traditional and Innovative Companies

The mission statements of companies reflect the characteristics of their country. There are differences in the content of mission statements between traditional and innovative companies. The sustainable growth of companies has recently become a major focus, and it has been found that mission statements are somewhat related to company innovation. This study analyzed the differences in the readability, keywords, and orientation of mission statements between the top 100 Korean and top 100 US companies by market capitalization and their traditionality and innovativeness. Differences in readability were assessed with the Gunning fog index. Differences in the main keywords were assessed with a keyword network analysis. Differences in orientation were assessed with the nine components of a mission statement. As Korean companies were aiming for global business, there was not much difference in the readability of mission statements between Korean and US companies, but there was a difference between traditional and innovative companies in both countries. There was a difference in the keywords and orientation of the mission statements of Korean and US innovative companies. Both Korean and US innovative companies focused highly on “philosophy.” However, Korean innovative companies focused more on “self-concept,” and US innovative companies focused more on a “concern for survival.”

How a hydrogen start-up can contribute to the energy transition through the emerging hydrogen economy

How a hydrogen start-up can contribute to the energy transition through the emerging hydrogen economy

Promotional practices in mission and vision statements of corporate companies: A systemic functional linguistic analysis

Promotional strategies have become discursive practices in corporate companies’ mission and vision statements. However, less focus was given to the role of grammar in shaping this text type as part of promotional discourse. Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is arguably the most definite and certain linguistic analysis as a meaning-making resource. Hence, the purpose of this study was to use transitivity grammar theory in SFL to analyse the use of experiential processes in enacting promotional rhetorical moves. Following purposive sampling, mission and vision statements of hundred international companies, which were ranked by current market capitalization, were selected. Using textual analysis, we applied transitivity grammar theory to manually analyse promotional rhetorical moves. The results were quantified and presented in tabulation form. The findings revealed that mental and relational processes are favoured grammatical patterns used by corporate firms to write mission statements that focus on building public image and establish self-concept. The findings of this research can prove helpful for other corporate companies to use similar grammatical patterns to develop mission and vision statements.

ESG Importance for Long-Term Shareholder Value Creation: Literature vs. Practice

This article aims to detect how ESG adds value to the long-term shareholder value creation and to discover whether businesses are aware of positive ESG effects and, therefore, whether they will become more ESG-conscious. By conducting a qualitative content analysis on the academic literature, this article firstly aims to determine if shareholders’ value is positively affected by corporate ESG awareness. Secondly, to test whether companies are becoming more conscious about the importance of ESG, the mission statements of publicly listed Central and Eastern European (CEE) companies are compared to their decade-old versions. This analysis allows us to conclude on whether companies have shifted their attention to the ESG factors as a part of their purpose of existence and, therefore, for long-term shareholder value creation, which is one of the main goals of the exchange-listed enterprises. The content analysis results show that companies with higher sustainability awareness ensure shareholder value creation via improved financial performance, management quality as well as reduced risk metrics. Additionally, qualitative nonfinancial factors such as reputation, stakeholder trust, employee satisfaction and engagement provide an even more significant effect on the long-term value than the pure financial matters. The theoretical trend is found to be supported by the fact that sustainability practice and consumer-oriented keywords dominate the mission statements of CEE companies, while keywords related to shareholders and profit experienced the most significant decrease from 2012 to 2021. The present research is unique as it looks at how companies tend to become more ESG aware, integrating the sustainability perspective into their mission statements in response to the global sustainability trend.

Analysis of the level of disclosure of the mission statements of large Brazilian companies,

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to verify the level of disclosure of the survival, growth, and profitability (SGP) construct in the mission statements of Brazilian companies and in the collective discourse of different economic sectors, classified according to the “Biggest & Best” Annual published by Exame Magazine. The research seeks to fill the gap in the field by studying the disclosure of the SGP construct in the mission statements of large Brazilian companies. Considering the mission statement as the genesis of strategic planning, an analysis of the disclosure of the SGP construct allows for a discussion of the relevance of the contribution of the mission statement to the elaboration, implementation, and monitoring of that planning. The benefit of a mission statement aligned with the strategic planning lies in adequate communication to the stakeholders regarding the long-term SGP goals, based on the assumption that comprehensive and objective communication minimizes the risks of failures during the management process. Collective subject discourse (CSD) was used to develop a qualification metric of the constitutive elements of the organizational mission statements, enabling it to be identified whether the Brazilian companies, grouped into different economic sectors, are smoothing, concealing, or omitting the construct formed by the SGP components in their mission statements. This study investigates the presence or not of the SGP components in the collective discourse of mission statements of 220 large Brazilian companies. Most of the companies analyzed in the sample do not include SGP in their mission statements and those that do discuss it with discursive vagueness, lacking clarity in their disclosure of the components. For the academia, this finding contributes to understanding the constituent components of the mission statements of large Brazilian companies. For organizations, the findings indicate the need to reflect on the content to be used in the formulation of their mission statements.

Is Environment a Strategic Priority of the Leading Energy Companies? Evidence from Mission Statements

Hydrocarbon production, electricity transmission, and other energy-related activities affect the environment. It is expected that environmental issues can be among strategic priorities summarized in mission statements of energy companies. The present analysis of the mission statements of 43 leading energy companies implies that these issues are considered by 36% of the top energy companies and 37% of the fastest-growing energy companies. These considerations often co-occur with attention to a company’s higher tasks and image. Most often, production ecologization is posed as a priority. The fastest-growing companies pay insufficient attention to climate changes. Conceptually, reflection of environmental issues in mission statements depends on the managerial awareness of these issues; additionally, the development of separate sustainability strategies may make environmental priorities somewhat marginal. The ‘greening’ of mission statements of energy companies is recommended.

Human "resources"? Objectification at work.

People behave differently when at work than not at work; for example, they are less interested in making close friends and use more transactional language (networking vs. socializing). These examples hint at a broader phenomenon: that people engage in more objectification-treating people akin to objects-in work contexts than non work contexts. We propose that objectification is more prevalent at work because people engage in more calculative and strategic thinking (i.e., making decisions by computing the costs and benefits). Seven studies (N = 2,712) test this. In Study 1, participants objectified the same individuals more when they were pictured at work (e.g., in an office) than not at work (e.g., in a coffee shop). In Study 2, there was more objectification when the same event was framed as more (vs. less) work-related. Studies 3a and 3b (experience-sampling studies with 2,300 data points) show that working adults objectify others more during work than non work interactions and demonstrate which situational characteristics enhance objectification. Study 4 manipulates the proposed mechanism: Participants nudged to think less calculatively and strategically showed a reduced tendency to objectify others in work contexts. Considering consequences, job applicants in Study 5 who read company mission statements containing more calculative language expected more objectification and were less interested in applying. Moreover, employees who perceived more objectification in their workplace reported more negative work experiences (e.g., feeling lower belonging, experiencing more incivility; Study 6). Together, these studies provide insight into how objectification arises, where it occurs, and its consequences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Understanding the role of organizational personality and social identity concerns on initial recruitment outcomes

For many job seekers, organizational affiliation can act as a signal of their values and goals. According to theory of symbolic attraction (TSA), job seekers are attracted to organizations with symbolic images (i.e., organizational personality) that help them portray a certain type of social identity. However, studies have found mixed support for TSA and this may be attributed to a lack of a broad and theoretically-based taxonomy of organizational personality. As such, we drew on multiple theoretical perspectives from the social judgment literature to develop an alternative two-factor organizational personality taxonomy. Across three studies, we first created and validated a scale to reliably and validly measure organizational personality. Then, we showed that active job seekers with different social identity needs are indeed attracted to companies that differ along the two dimensions of the new taxonomy (i.e., warmth and competence) using LinkedIn job advertisements. Finally, we used computer-aided text analysis (CATA) to index organizational personality from company mission statements but found only partial support for TSA in a sample of engineering job seekers. We contribute to the recruitment literature by exploring why certain job seekers are initially attracted to different types of organizations and discuss how TSA can be further developed and refined. Practically, our results highlight the potential utility of organizations signaling images that resonate with job seekers' social identity concerns early on in the recruitment process.

Environmental Concerns of Russian Businesses: Top Company Missions and Climate Change Agenda

Climate change is on the national agenda of Russia due to this country’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and the expected degree of warming and precipitation increase in its territory. A content analysis of the mission statements of the 100 biggest Russian companies shows that 18.5% of them deal with environmental issues. About half of the companies that declare pro-environmental behavior belong to the energy production and transmission industry. It also is found that more than 30% of all leading hydrocarbon, chemical, and mining companies express environmental concerns in their mission statements. The main environmental priorities declared by the top Russian companies include caring for nature, production ecologization, energy efficiency, and ecological standards. These priorities are related to climate-friendly behavior, but the latter is not stated directly. Direct consideration of climate change in the mission statements of Russian companies is recommended.

Competition among BRICS Companies for Cleaner Production Strategies

Cleaner production is a universally defined policy ascertained by of the United Nations for countries worldwide. Multinational companies diligently emphasize the cleaner production strategy while setting their organizational goals. Keeping in view the importance of cleaner production in the world; this study investigates the vision and mission statements of selective multinational companies working in the BRICS countries. Top five multinational companies from each BRICS country; listed in the stock exchanges were taken and their vision and mission statements were analyzed via content analysis methods. The results of the study indicated that the Russian multinational companies were found to be most focused on the cleaner production strategies in their vision and mission statements. Moreover, the results reveal that the South African companies gave the least attention to the cleaner production as compared to other BRICS countries. This study opened the door for future studies and suggested the researchers to investigate more ineptly while focusing more countries and to expand the topic to know the universal implementation of cleaner production policies.

Deutsche Bank Restart: Goodbye Goldman Sachs of Europe?

This public-sourced case describes the latest restructuring efforts by Deutsche Bank (DB) and gives a short history of prior restructuring efforts from the decade before. In July 2019, Christian Sewing, the new CEO of DB, announced a series of measures that included, among others, the elimination of global equity trading, the layoff of 18,000 employees, the creation of a bad bank to transfer noncore assets, and the suspension of dividends until 2022. The case describes key decisions a bank CEO makes when a bank needs to change course to return to profitability and growth. The case offers an opportunity to debate these key decisions, as well as discuss some of the prior ones during earlier restructuring efforts, and put the students in the CEO's shoes: What would you do and why? The case also describes key banking performance metrics (e.g., ROE, ROA) and other critical variables such as those reflecting capital health (Tier 1 ratio), as well as gives an overview of the bank business model and factors impacting bank profitability and value. Excerpt UVA-F-1934 Rev. Jan. 21, 2021 Deutsche Bank Restart: Goodbye Goldman Sachs of Europe? What is our north star, when reshaping Deutsche Bank? CEO Christian Sewing In July 2019, on a day of massive employee layoffs at Deutsche Bankmostly in its equity sales and trading businesstwo executives made headlines for having new USD1,800 suits fitted at the office. Their out-of-touch leadership behavior did little for the struggling German bank's reputation. And it drew the ire and a phone call from CEO Christian Sewing. In no way is this behavior in keeping with our values, Sewing said. I assume in any case that the two colleagues will not forget my telephone call. (See Appendix1 for the company's mission statement.) . . .

Trends of Corporate Mission Statements: From pursuing profit to distinctive and social value

Abstract A mission statement has a significant meaning as the initial and essential step in a company’s strategic planning process. Previous studies have pointed out the necessity of monitoring and longitudinal study of corporate mission statements as they should be continuously revised against changes in companies’ strategies and business environment. This study aims to shed light on what types of strategies and values are currently highlighted in companies’ mission statements in comparison with the findings of a well-known previous study. Therefore, this study conducted a content analysis of 491 Fortune 500 companies’ mission statements. As a result, we found that “philosophy” is mostly highlighted and “profitability” is not emphasized in contemporary companies’ mission statements. Compared to the past study, these findings imply that there have been dramatic changes in the content of corporate mission statements. Besides, this study divided 491 Fortune 500 companies into two groups, high performers and low performers, according to their Fortune ranking and investigated significant differences between high and low performers using t-tests. The high performers were found to more often highlight “selfconcept” and “public image” than low performers. However, the difference in mean scores between high and low performers has become smaller than in the past finding. In particular, there is no statistical difference in mission statement component numbers between high and low performers. These findings can provide futher understanding about changes of companies’ strategic emphasis and the nature of corporate mission statements. This study provides a comparative insight for practitioners making company mission statements.

Cultures of Genius at Work: Organizational Mindsets Predict Cultural Norms, Trust, and Commitment

Three studies examine how organizational mindset-whether a company is perceived to view talent as fixed or malleable-functions as a core belief that predicts organizational culture and employees' trust and commitment. In Study 1, Fortune 500 company mission statements were coded for mindset language and paired with Glassdoor culture data. Workers perceived a more negative culture at fixed (vs. growth) mindset companies. Study 2 experimentally manipulated organizational mindset and found that people evaluated fixed (vs. growth) mindset companies as having more negative culture norms and forecasted that employees would experience less trust and commitment. Study 3 confirmed these findings from more than 500 employees of seven Fortune 1000 companies. Employees who perceived their organization to endorse a fixed (vs. growth) mindset reported that their company's culture was characterized by less collaboration, innovation, and integrity, and they reported less organizational trust and commitment. These findings suggest that organizational mindset shapes organizational culture.

Comparative Analysis of Mission Statements of Chinese and American Fortune 500 Companies: A Study from the Perspective of Linguistics

A mission statement is an important instrument for strategic management for an enterprise. How to establish a mission statement and how to leverage its roles in conveying the vision of and leading the long-term and sustainable growth of the enterprise are critical in strategic planning for enterprises. The current study adopted a corpus analysis method and built a corpus of mission statements by selecting the mission statements of 100 companies each from Chinese and American companies in the 2017 Fortune 500 companies. Through the analysis of high-frequency words obtained from the corpus based on the appraisal system approach from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), we attempted to identify the characteristics discerning the mission statements of Chinese and American companies. Our results showed that (1) the distribution patterns of evaluation resource words of Chinese and American companies are similar; (2) Chinese companies highlight innovation, society and development of the enterprise, while American companies emphasize customers and product or service; (3) both Chinese and American enterprises highly concern survival, philosophy and public image; (4) American companies pay more attention to stakeholders, especially primary social stakeholders, while Chinese companies’ attention is inclined to secondary social stakeholders. It is concluded that the mission statements of Chinese companies are society oriented and emphasize the social roles of an organization, showing a corporate pertinence to a lesser extent, while American companies’ mission statements pay more attention to customers and partner relationships, which can be seen as the American companies’ market and individual orientation.

Sustainable fresh produce business practice: a case of SWIFT Co. Ltd.

SWIFT Company Ltd. has the following company mission statement: it will supply only premium quality produce with the highest standard of food safety and every stakeholder in the value chain must fairly benefit from the company's operation. A major problem of the smallholder farmer's structure is that they have to sell their products through middlemen, meaning that they cannot set the price for their own produce since the wholesale market price depends on the demand and supply of that particular time of the day. Swift Co. Ltd. created the model of long-term contract farming with groups of farmers by guaranteeing a minimum buying price, which means that farmers have minimum 100% of margin on the investment. But if the market price goes up, perhaps because their products were destroyed by bad weather, the company will buy at the market price. On the other hand, if the market price goes down when there is a supply surplus, the company will buy at the guaranteed price; our contract farming with farmers has been sustainable for more than 20 years. All the products from contracted farms are produced under strictly controlled safety conditions and quality of the products under the highest food safety and quality standards such as GLOBAL GAP, AGROCHEMICAL FREE, and ORGANIC FARMING while they are processed under, BRC standard, HACCP, TRACEABILITY and SEDEX SMETA. That is why SWIFT products have been well accepted by customers in Europe, Japan, USA, and Australia for more than 3 decades.

Pacific Market: invest, sell, or stay the same?

Theoretical basis This case should be paired with textbook chapters that cover the important roles of leadership, staffing and corporate culture in the strategy implementation effort. The case can also be used to review textbook chapters covering competitive and industry analysis, differentiation strategies, goal setting and financial analysis. In advanced courses, readings on leadership and corporate social responsibility should be assigned to inform debates regarding Vasu’s style and his commitment to creating shared value. Alternatively, instructors in retail management courses could assign readings that investigate the linkages of human resource management, service quality and other behaviors to optimal supermarket performance. Research methodology The authors revised this case and Teaching Noes from an MBA student case writing project in Fall 2017. The student conducted focus groups with Pacific Market’s consumers, worked with Vasu and his consultant, Tom Scott, a former CEO of a local grocery chain, supplemented with secondary industry research and demographic information about the cities of Sebastopol and Santa Rosa. Meetings to develop the company mission statement and long-term goals took place over Fall 2017. Tom provided the operating information and trade area analysis used in the case, and Vasu provided financial statements and background information. Case overview/synopsis After a career as a turnaround specialist for Silicon Valley high-tech startups, Vasudev Narayanan (Vasu) acquired Pacific Market, a two-store chain in Sonoma County, California, in 2013. By Fall 2017, rival local chains had expanded, online vendors threatened in-store shopping, the Amazon-Whole Foods combination threatened disruption, and consumers increasingly insisted on “buying local.” Vasu aimed to grow revenues 50 percent by 2020, and fund Good Karma Foundation, a charity in his native India. Strategies to achieve these objectives included infrastructure investments, employee profit sharing, changing the mix of products and amenities or finding a buyer for the operation. Complexity academic level The Pacific Market case is intended for undergraduate or MBA-level strategic management courses. The case pairs well with coverage of how leaders approach the strategy implementation effort, a topic typically introduced toward the end of the course. The case gives students practice in applying strategy formulation concepts and frameworks, e.g. PESTEL analysis, Porter’s industry forces, key industry drivers, strategic group mapping, SWOT analysis, corporate social responsibility and financial ratio analysis. Instructors might also use this case to cover similar material in retail management courses. The case is highly suitable as a written assignment for an examination and/or for team presentations.