The Organization's Mission Statement: Give Up Hope or Resuscitate? A Search for Evidence-Based Recommendations

Abstract

The increasing complexity and dynamicity of their environment compels health care managers to search relentlessly for effective management instruments. One strategic tool that both academics and practitioners have deemed critical to the success of any health care organization is the development of a meaningful mission statement. However, despite the seemingly omnipresence of the concept, studies indicate that creating an effective mission statement seems to be extremely difficult, if not downright frustrating for a lot of health care managers. This inability to create an effective mission statement roots for the greater part in the fact that the previous literature has provided little practical guidance on how health care administrators should formulate and deploy mission statements. Given the increasing pressure on health care organizations to develop an effective mission statement, this chapter (1) provides a detailed analysis of the mission statement concept based on a thorough literature analysis and (b) offers empirically based recommendations on how to successfully formulate and implement a mission statement within a health care organization based on a systematic analysis of relevant empirical research. These analyses and the derived evidence-based recommendations will help health care managers to revive their mission statement and make it more than a piece of paper.

Citation

Desmidt, S. and Prinzie, A.A. (2011), "The Organization's Mission Statement: Give Up Hope or Resuscitate? A Search for Evidence-Based Recommendations", Wolf, J.A., Hanson, H., Moir, M.J., Friedman, L. and Savage, G.T. (Ed.) Organization Development in Healthcare: Conversations on Research and Strategies (Advances in Health Care Management, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 25-41. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1474-8231(2011)0000010008