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Mission statements are used for a variety of reasons in organizations, including defining the purpose of the institution, communicating with its stakeholders, shaping its strategic planning process, providing a realistic snapshot of its everyday work, and outlining its future goals or objectives (among many others). For many academic libraries, mission statements are used to showcase resources, services, technologies, and innovations. The purpose of this study is to examine the mission statements of libraries that have won the ACRL Excellence in Libraries Award and analyze whether (or not) the winning libraries used innovation to create a distinct environment that was reflected through their mission statements. The study uses the work of Pearce and David (1987) to determine what elements are included in the mission statements. This chapter utilizes qualitative methodology in the study.

Pearce and David (1987) outline eight elements found in mission statements: target customer; principal products/services; geographic domain; core technologies; survival, growth, or profit; company philosophy; self-concept; and public image. This qualitative study finds that the mission statements of the academic libraries collectively included seven of the elements, omitting survival, growth, or profit universally. Also, the inclusion of these elements allows many of the libraries to create their unique description, unveiling a commitment to innovation.

As an original research study, this chapter adds a unique perspective to the concept of innovation in academic libraries, particularly as it examines the mission statements of award-winning libraries to determine if innovation is found in these foundational documents.

This study aims to explore the intellectual connections of mission statement research to identify the influential domains of source knowledge and emergent areas of research for future studies.

The authors deployed bibliometric methods, namely, citation, co-citation and network analysis. The authors collected data from the Scopus and Web of Science databases and analyzed the connections of the most influential articles.

The authors identified four knowledge domains that informed the mission statements literature: guidance on mission statement development, the value of mission statements, mission statements and organizational issues, mission statement content and communication. And the authors spotted four opportunities for knowledge advancement based on theoretical frameworks, performance measures, content and context.

Practitioners should think beyond the immediate benefits of mission statements, such as performance and legitimacy improvement. Instead, they should focus on long-term benefits, information advantages and democratizing the development phase of mission statements.

Mission statements have attracted scholarly attention over the past 40 years. Despite the formation of a considerable body of knowledge, intellectual connections of mission statement research have been largely neglected. Previous studies had a narrow focus or insufficient coverage of the literature. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first full-scale bibliometric study on the intellectual connections of the mission statements literature.

High performing firms have been associated with “quality” mission statements defined by the choice of components. In an attempt to extend our knowledge in order to give more legitimacy to these claims and also provide more local and relevant reference for Ghana‐based firms, the purpose of this paper is to investigate, through a component analysis, how high‐performing Ghana‐based firms define their mission.

Mission statements of 50 of the Ghana Club 100 firms, primarily extracted from the official web sites, Initial Public Offer prospectuses and annual reports of the firms, were subjected to content analysis which evaluated and scored the mission statements based on the occurrence of 20 specific components.

The paper found that high‐performing Ghana‐based firms define missions to include components that the literature uses to measure quality; and these are similar to those of the UK, Canada and Ireland. Based on the ranking of the components, three categories were identified: the imperatives, the highlights, and the adjuncts.

The paper lumped together all firms irrespective of industry or sector. There is, therefore, the need to conduct further research to identify possible industry or sectoral differences, for better insight and relevance.

Ideas generated in this paper provide a guide to practitioners and firms regarding how they can develop mission statements, drawing on experiences of high‐performing Ghana‐based firms.

This is the first attempt to study how high‐performing Ghana‐based firms define their mission and hence is a major contribution to the scarce if not non‐existent Africa‐specific studies. It also provides a more prescriptive approach to crafting mission statements by proposing hierarchies of the components of mission statements.

This study uses a stakeholder perspective to explain the content of mission statements, in particular the inclusion of stakeholder groups. The study uses stakeholder dependency theory and resource dependency theory to explain the content of mission statement. In line with this perspective, stakeholders in this study will be classified as either being resource providers, such as employees and customers, or non‐resource providers, such as the community and the environment. The primary aim of the study is to find evidence for the theoretical relationship between the importance of stakeholders to the company and the inclusion of stakeholder groups in the company's mission statement.

The use of a large dataset with 490 observations enables a multivariate analysis of mission statement content, focusing on country‐, industry‐, and company‐specific factors.

The study finds that stakeholder groups the company is more dependent on, are addressed in mission statements more frequently. In addition, the profile of an industry, legal origin and ownership concentration are found to be related with stakeholder inclusion in mission statements.

The database used adopts a broad definition of a mission statement, as a result of which the study may also include documents such as vision statements. Additional factors might exist that could explain the inclusion of stakeholder groups in the mission statement. For example, Hope states that both legal origin and culture are important in explaining corporate disclosure. Therefore, literature on cultural dimensions by Hofstede and Schwartz might also be used as explanatory variables in future research. Finally, additional evidence on the industry classification developed in this study is required to further substantiate these results.

The observed differences in mission statement content with respect to stakeholder management signify the fact that the mission statement is not a standardized document which can simply be ignored by managers. Therefore, managers must be aware of the environment in which the company is situated, in order to approach the stakeholders which are most important to the organization. A failure to recognize and include essential stakeholders in the mission statement may be costly in the long run, particularly when competitors are better able to address these stakeholders.

This study adds to the existing stream of literature on mission statements by introducing the dependence of the company on the stakeholder as an explanatory factor for the inclusion of stakeholders in mission statements. Consequently, the study uses stakeholder dependency theory and resource dependency theory to explain the content of mission statement, rather than signaling theory. Furthermore, this is one of few empirical studies on mission statements that uses a large dataset with 490 observations, enabling a multivariate analysis of mission statement content.

It is believed that the core aim of Islamic institution is idiosyncratic from conventional business entities. Considering this presumption, this study aims to reveal the understandings of various stakeholders about objectives of Islamic banks.

The research endeavor is based on the findings of two distinctive studies, where Study 1 was aimed at investigating the communication of objectives through mission statements of Islamic banks and conventional banks with window operations. Here, mission statements were analyzed using content analysis and readability and understandability tests. Study 2, on the other hand, was aimed at investigating the understandings of various stakeholders, both internal (employees) and external (Muslim and non-Muslim customers of both Islamic and conventional banks, employees and management of conventional banks and business students). In total, 370 responses were received and analyzed in this study.

The findings (Study 1) unveil, the fact, that the mission statements of Islamic banks working in Pakistan are not good at communicating the corporate goals clearly. Out of ten banks investigated for Study 1, it is evident that only one bank (HBL, with window operations) was at par with readability threshold standards. Thus, it was imperative to share that mission statements of Islamic banks are difficult to read and comprehend. Study 2 adds further by revealing that most of the stakeholders are not clear about the objectives of these banks, while customers of conventional banks do not value the distinctive objectives of Islamic banks.

This study leaves a valuable message for the policy makers and top management of Islamic banks by focusing on the unattended part on their end, i.e. quality of mission statements and stakeholders’ perception about the objectives of their organization, thus highlighting the needs of greater emphasis on the communication flow to stakeholders, as the clarity of business purpose may change the way customers react toward the business and opt for banking – customer relation in future.

This study covers a multi-dimensional investigation of the understanding and communication of objectives of Islamic banks. There is dearth of literature focusing on the aspects of content analysis, mission statement readability and understandability and investigation of stakeholders’ perception in tandem.

This study aimed to find possible answers to whether U.S. universities are merely looking good or doing good regarding their third mission using elements of the triple bottom line (people, planet, prosperity) and the 2030 Agenda.

Qualitative exploratory empirical study based on an in-depth analysis of publicly available documents (i.e. mission statements and strategic planning) and information from the Impact Rankings 2020 edition (webpages). The study uses a multilevel analysis to capture the parameters “looking good” and “doing good.” The sample consists of 15 U.S. universities.

The findings demonstrate that universities are looking good in terms of their effort to support their third mission. Data show that all universities covered themes related to people and prosperity in their mission statements and strategic planning. However, when the authors dived into the managerial metrics, KPIs, benchmarks and other evidence to characterize them as doing good, the authors encountered some challenges in identifying evidence. The data suggest that universities most likely participated in the Impact Ranking act as “cherry pickers” and might participate in unproblematic goals for their organization.

The 3Ps and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals used in this study to examine the university public mission never used in other studies. The goal in this study was not to evaluate those universities in terms of looking good and doing good but rather to contribute to the gap in the literature and provide suggestions to university C-suite.

It is believed that Islamic banks are aimed at the welfare of its stakeholders (Dusuki, 2008). The major stakeholders consist of customers, employees, competitors and management. But whether the Islamic banks are really able to communicate and convey their mission to their stakeholders is an area which has not be given due importance. This paper aims to attempt to unveil this issue.

This study comprised two distinctive methodological stances, where mission statements of selected (five) Islamic banks were analyzed using content analysis, readability and understandability in first instance. In second step, various stakeholders responded for their perception of objectives of stakeholders through personally administrated questionnaires. In all, 370 respondents recorded their responses in this stage.

Findings of the study show that Islamic banks are not well in communication to their objectives through their missions statements. Moreover, most of the stakeholders are not clear about the objectives of Islamic banks.

This study is first of its type which covers content analysis, mission statement readability and understandability and perception of stakeholders in one study.

After two decades of research, the effect of a mission statement on an organization's performance is still unclear. In order to address these shortcomings, a research project via the setting‐up of this paper seeks to identify all empirical studies addressing the mission statement‐financial performance relation, analyze how the mission statement‐financial performance relation is operationalized, and aggregate the findings of the identified studies by means of a meta‐analysis.

A systematic literature review procedure was developed to identify all relevant articles and meta‐analytic procedures were used to calculate the effect size of the selected studies.

The study results indicate a small positive relation between mission statements and measures of financial organizational performance. However, additional analyses indicated that interstudy differences in measures significantly influenced the estimates (population effect sizes of the created subsamples ranged from 0.0808 to 0.4100).

These contradictive findings stress the importance and impact of operationalization decisions in mission statement‐performance research, and provide paths for future practice‐oriented research.

This study is the first to assess the performance impact of one of the most popular management instruments, namely mission statements, by means of meta‐analytical techniques and, to evaluate the moderation effect of operationalization decisions on the cited relationship. Furthermore, by aggregating research on the mission statement‐performance relationship, a knowledge base was devised which provides normative advice on the characteristics of a “good” mission statement.

Mission statements are perceived as effective strategic tools and foundations of an organization's objectives, driving the development of strategic plans to meet the established goals. A vast number of studies have investigated mission statements in industry; however, little is known on how mission statements affect institutes in the higher education sector. Every university is intrinsically different, with its own mission and goals. This study aims to explore how mission statements make the difference among universities, by understanding the values delivered by the mission statements.

This study attempts to understand the core values of universities through a content analysis of the mission statements of the top 250 universities worldwide.

The results show four core dimensions in university mission statements, namely, “Education Philosophies”, “Strategic Orientation”, “Social Responsibility” and “Values to Stakeholders”, while the most common core values are “Research”, “Educate” and “Student”.

Mission statements offer insightful venues for the analysis of the strategic directions of universities. The results show that top universities present their core values through their mission statements. Some mission statements are more service-oriented (towards students) and some are more social-oriented (towards society and stakeholders). These mission statements are communicated to various stakeholders. “Education philosophies” are communicated to educators and students, “Social responsibility” is to the society, “Values to the stakeholders” are towards the different parties involved in the education system and the last one “Strategic orientation” is for the strategy setting.

This paper proposes a new methodology of mission statement studies, covering not only studies on mission statements but also the internationalization strategies of universities, which attract attention from academics and education researchers.

A mission statement is the central axis of any organization and the cornerstone of its strategic planning. Universities have implemented this tool to define, among other things, its identity; however, the legal nature and functions of the mission statement have not been determined. In this article, the authors analyze the differences in the university mission statements of public and private higher education institutions in relation to the mission functions proposed by the 1992 legislation on higher education in Colombia – Law 30 – involving teaching, research, extension and social projection and internationalization.

Through content analysis, the authors analyze the mission statements of two groups of institutions that make up the totality of universities in Colombia – 32 public and 53 private universities. The analysis is conducted along the four dimensions defined by the law as comprising the higher education mission, i.e. teaching, research, extension and social projection, and internationalization, due to its importance in the high-quality institutional accreditation process.

Based on the differences identified in the mission statements, the authors establish the university functions and determine how they give back to society in their legal capacity as public or private institutions.

This research scenario is appropriate for answering research questions related to whether there are differences in the strategies of Colombian public and private universities based on their mission statements. Although the Colombian higher education system includes various types of tertiary institutions, only universities are included in the study.

Research has shown that regardless of their legal nature, based on their mission statements, Colombian universities are mainly geared towards teaching. However, when comparing additional dimensions, private universities are less involved in research processes and more focused on activities related to social impact than are public universities. Additionally, private universities are more engaged in internationalization than are public institutions, with mission statements focused on both national and international accreditation processes.

The results of this research are intended to help society comprehend the differences between public and private universities in Colombia based on mission statements, which can contribute to understanding, among other factors, the academic programs offered by universities and how they should guide their activities.

This is the first such study in Colombia, a country that provides higher education through public and private institutions in very similar proportions, that analyses the differences in university mission statements and whose findings contribute to understanding whether universities are strategically oriented towards their own established policies or to contributing to the development of new public policies aimed at supporting the country's development process.