Mission is the description of an organization’s reasons for existence, its fundamental purpose. It is the guiding principle that drives the processes of goal and action plan formulation, “a pervasive, although general, expression of the philosophical objectives of the enterprise.” Mission should focus on “long-range economic potentials, attitudes toward customers, product and service quality, employee relations, and attitudes toward owners.” It provides identity, continuity of purpose, and overall definition, and should convey the following categories of information.
- Precisely why the organization exists, its purpose, in terms (a) its basic product or service, (b) its primary markets, and (c) its major production technology.
- The moral and ethical principles that will shape the philosophy and charter of the organization.
- The ethical climate within the organization.
Thus mission outlines the firm’s identity and provides a guide for shaping strategies at all organizational levels. The role played by mission in guiding the organization is an important one. Specifically it.
- serves as a basis for consolidation around the organization’s purpose.
- provides impetus to and guidelines for resource allocation.
- defines the internal atmosphere of the organization, its climate.
- serves as a set of guidelines for the assignment of job responsibilities.
- facilitates the design of key variables for a control system.
Deal and Kennedy claim that a strong culture is the key to long-term corporate success and that culture has five elements:
- Business Environment,
- Values,
- Heroes (People Who Personify Values),
- Rites And Rituals (Routines of Day-To-Day Corporate Life),
- The Cultural Network (Communication Systems).
The mission statement describes primarily the second of these cultural factors, corporate values. The strong cultural companies studies by Deal and Kennedy all had “a rich and complex system must be believable in that the company’s behavior should correspond to it over both the short and long term. In this way it can serve as the foundation for the development of respect for and pride in the firm by management, owners, customers, suppliers, and others who interact with it.
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