A Proposed Method to Assess Enterprise Mission Statements

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present a method of assessing mission statements. The reference mission statement was developed based on Johnson & Johnson’s “Our Credo”. In the proposed method, references to the main groups of stakeholders (customers, suppliers, competitors, employees, the environment, local community and others) are included. The values that may exist in the enterprise (business, development and social) are also included in this method. The form of the mission (personal or impersonal) was taken into account. All of these elements were awarded points. Based on the sum of the points, the rate of mission statement professionalism was calculated. The developed method was tested by evaluating 34 mission statements of food processing plants. Only one company’s mission statement had a rate of professionalism above 80%. In the case of the other enterprises, this indicator was below 60%. The most important stakeholder for companies was customers, with employees in second place. Other stakeholders were not seen as those to whom you have any obligation.