Mission statements are considered to be one of the most popular management tools in the world – and also one of the most frustrating. To secure their success, it has been…
Abstract
Mission statements are considered to be one of the most popular management tools in the world – and also one of the most frustrating. To secure their success, it has been recommended that mission statements be communicated and disseminated to as many internal and external stakeholders as possible. One means for doing this is through the Internet and the posting of an organization’s mission statement on its company Web site. But who is doing this? What types of organizations are using the World Wide Web to advertise their missions? Where is a mission statement typically located in a corporate Web site? And what are some of the motivations that an organization has for posting or not posting its mission? These are questions which have not yet been addressed by previous research and which this preliminary study sought to answer.
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Christopher K. Bart, Nick Bontis and Simon Taggar
A relationship between mission and organizational performance was modeled by drawing on previous research. The model was tested with data from 83 large Canadian and US…
Abstract
A relationship between mission and organizational performance was modeled by drawing on previous research. The model was tested with data from 83 large Canadian and US organizations. We found that mission statements can affect financial performance, however, not as one might have anticipated initially. Several mediating elements were observed to exist. For instance, “commitment to the mission” and the “degree to which an organization aligns its internal structure, policies and procedures with its mission” were both found to be positively associated with “employee behavior”. It was this latter variable which was observed, in turn, to have the most direct relationship with financial performance.
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This paper seeks to determine whether significant differences exist between secular and faith‐based hospitals in terms of specific mission statement components and mission‐related…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to determine whether significant differences exist between secular and faith‐based hospitals in terms of specific mission statement components and mission‐related performance variables.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 130 top managers from a sample of 515 Canadian hospitals responded to a comprehensive questionnaire investigating 23 mission statement components and seven mission performance outcome measures. Data were analyzed using frequency analysis, one‐way analysis of variance, MANOVA, chi‐squared and Mann‐Whitney U tests.
Findings
The analysis showed that differences in mission content exist between different types of hospitals, and that these differences form a pattern of sorts within each type. It was also found that faith‐based hospitals out‐perform their secular counterparts in many ways.
Research limitations/implications
The research and its findings are limited in their application to relatively large Canadian health care organizations and the responses/opinions given by managers from a hospital's senior echelons.
Practical implications
The results have implications for all health care organizations interested in improving the results in their mission performance scorecard. The findings both confirm the impact that mission statements can have on selected hospital performance indicators and demonstrate that faith‐based hospitals have been more diligent in taking advantage of them.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to show that specific and significant differences exist between the mission statements of secular and faith‐based hospitals and that those differences are associated with hospital performance. These findings will be of special interest to senior hospital administrators and “directors of mission” within faith‐based institutions.
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One of the greatest challenges facing advocates of the intellectual capital movement is finding ways to measure and report on its content and effect. Some consider the measurement…
Abstract
One of the greatest challenges facing advocates of the intellectual capital movement is finding ways to measure and report on its content and effect. Some consider the measurement of human intellectual capital (HIC) to be a daunting exercise. At the same time, mission statements represent the cornerstone of most organizational strategies. While much research has been conducted on what the HIC construct might contain, none has attempted to understand the link between mission statements and their impact on the HIC construct. The tentative results reported in this study begin to fill the void. They show that mission statements may indeed have a valid place in the measurement and reporting of an organization’s intellectual capital and they demonstrate the need for more research in this regard.
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Christopher K. Bart and Maureen Hupfer
One of the most popular management tools in the world, the mission statement also is subject to widespread criticism. In order to improve our understanding of the mission…
Abstract
One of the most popular management tools in the world, the mission statement also is subject to widespread criticism. In order to improve our understanding of the mission statement's strategic value and to provide actionable recommendations for healthcare organizations, the paper adopted a social constructionist perspective in a mission statement study conducted among Canadian hospital executives. The paper found seven factors underlying 23 possible mission statement content items. Four of these (grand inspiration, benefactors, competitive orientation and business definition) corresponded to the dimensions of dominant managerial logic proposed by von Krogh and Grand, and were positively related to various behavioral, financial performance and mission achievement measures. The findings indicate that not all mission statement components are created equal and that the recommendations of major strategy texts may require reconsideration where this particular institutional context is concerned.
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Christopher K. Bart and Roderick E. White
How should diversified, multibusiness companies organize to implement the many different business strategies their organizations require? Twenty years ago the answer to this…
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How should diversified, multibusiness companies organize to implement the many different business strategies their organizations require? Twenty years ago the answer to this question was relatively straightforward—divisionalize. Once the scope of individual operating units making up a diversified firm became too large and too complex to administer within a single system, most of these firms switched to a more decentralized decision‐making divisional structure.
The promise seen in new venture units is alluring.