In the Hindu spirituality two questions that are very important for understanding the reason for existence and direction of an individual. These are ‘who am I’ and ‘where am going’. The first question is about the identification of the self and the second one points at the reason for an action. At the superficial level, upon asking the first question a person is likely to identify himself or herself by a name. It is what is given to identify a body. And the second question is likely to yield the name of the activity that one is engaged in. These answers may look like naïve when these questions are addressed form a higher plane of consciousness. When the vision is limited to the material part of the self or the activity a big and important aspect that is invisible goes unappreciated. |
In nineties, the corporate world awoke to importance of corporate identity and reason for being. Like the humans, often the answers to these questions touch the periphery without reflecting correctly on the truth in the corporation’ context. For instance, upon asking the first question one hears the names of the companies where people are employed like Reliance or Bharti. And the answer to the second question yields a narrow description of the activity one is engaged in for instance inspecting finished product or check quality or procuring raw materials. The answers like these are not wrong. But they reflect myopic perception of the phenomenon. The perception beyond the obvious seems to be missing in these answers. The companies that build structures on yopic understanding can get their performance up to a level where they can meet the competitive threshold on various deliverables but cannot surpass them. |
As turbulence became intense, and need for unleashing and harnessing human potential to the maximum was realised. In order to signal correctly the business intent, the future direction, reason for existence and provide direction in day-to-day activities, the corporate world discovered the value of putting thoughts on these on a written document. Hence vision and mission statements, declarations, credos, mottoes, oaths, aspirations were born. Among other benefits, mission or vision statements can deliver many positive benefits to a system. These include improvement in the business focus, similarity in the perception of organisational image, enhancement of professional perception, team orientation, boost in employee morale and finally attraction and retention of the best talent(1). |
Ten years ago Robert Levering(2) observed that about half of the U.S. business corporations had some kind of statement to the effect of mission or vision statement. This number was double of what was further ten years ago in eighties. Such wide acceptance of the concept obviously rested on the perceived benefits that these statements promised to the companies. One of the reasons for their proliferation is that these try to capture the elusive essence of the company. Besides a good value statement can act as ultimate control system. When values are agreed upon it does away the need to monitor and control. Similarly, when people share same values it built quality within. Finally, in modern day business situations, the decisions or actions have to be taken in an instant as the situations arise. There is no opportunity to refer to rule-book. The action governing values have to be internalised(3). |
Top Theoretical Background What sets apart the companies that endure success is their ability to clearly demarcate between what is to be preserved as constant what is open to change. The core purpose and values for these companies remain constant while business strategies and practices change as per the changing environment(4). Vision serves as a guide as to what core to be preserved, the core ideology. And what future to stimulate progress to? This is envisioned future. The core ideology defines the enduring character or consistent identity of the organisation. The two elements in the core ideology are core values and core purpose. Core ideology consists of timeless fundamental tenets of the organisation that are intrinsically defined and require no external justification. For instance respect for individual in HP. Core purpose signifies the motivations for doing the work that people do in an organisation. It is the reason for being. For instance Walt Disney aims ‘to make people happy’ and 3M is given to ‘to solve unsolved problems innovatively‘. Purpose acts as a guiding star on the horizon. Purpose itself may not change but it does inspire change. The second important element of vision is envisioned future. It consists of audacious goals or bold missions that act as unifying focal point of efforts in the system. The envisioned future besides vision level goals needs vivid or specific description of what it will be like to achieve them. It can make the long terms goals tangible in the minds of the people. |
In exploring the relationship between the employees and management and employees themselves, two kinds of companies were distinguished(5). One set of companies had a vague sense of despair and resignation around them which could not be observed rather could only be felt. Leaving these places of work at the end of the day brings a sigh of relief. While the other set of companies had different level of feel. Working in these companies leaves one excited and energised. These contrasting feelings are not attributable to the physical rather depressing companies were housed in beautiful well-designed offices. Three elements that set apart the energetic companies are shared purpose, shared values and the presence of leadership. Shared purpose allows sight to go beyond the immediate details of work that people generally get involved in. It gives them a mission. Shared values bind the people together around some core beliefs that establishes the internal culture. Finally leadership is critical in sustaining the culture and direction. Leaders inspire commitment that is much more that compliance. |
Two schools of thought can be distinguished about mission and vision(6). One looks at the mission in terms of business strategy and the other takes the philosophical and ethical angel. The strategy schools views mission as a strategic tool that defines the commercial rationale and target market. The philosophical school views missions as cultural glue that makes the organisation work as collective unity. The cultural glue consists of norms and values that influence behavior of people in the way they behave, work together and pursue organisational goals. In some sense, the strategy aspect of mission can influence the minds of the people while the philosophical or ethical aspect influence the hearts of the people. There are four elements of mission-purpose, strategy, behavior standards and values. Purpose defines the reason why the company exists or for whose benefits the efforts are made. Is it shareholders, society or the customer? Strategy explains how the organisation will achieve its purpose. Focus of strategy is commercial logic and competence and advantage. Policies and behavior standards guide behavior of people on daily basis. That is how the purpose and strategy would be converted into tangible actions. For instance, BA urges its employees to ‘put the people first’. Finally, the value element defines the beliefs and moral principles that give meaning to norms and behaviors. |
Articulation of mission and creation of a sense of mission leads to numerous benefits(7). First of all a company with a clear sense of mission is able enjoy the benefits of commitment and loyalty of employees. Second, the clarity of organisational values makes it easier to select, recruit, promote and develop right kind of people. People with the consistent values are attracted to the organisation and stay with it. The process thus becomes that of self-selection. Third benefit comes form grater cooperation and trust. People find it easier to work together, respect each other and work in the direction of organisational interest rather than individual interest. Further, strong values can help decision-making. Decisions are often made on the judgement calls, values can improve the judgement calls and help them being consistent. |
Most of the organisations have to bank upon employee behaviors to run the business. Employee behaviors are essential for organisational functioning at its basic level. But when behaviors match with expected standards, this catapults the functioning to a higher level. The strategy demands that employee behaviors must converge on to something demanded by the business logic. When a fusion exists between the strategy and values strong behaviors happen. The linking pin between the organisational mission and culture is set of values. Companies with strong cultures generally have well defined and accepted corporate values. It is these values that set the standards for the behaviors. Values link the organisational mission with the culture. The set of values or philosophical core of an organisation can motivate the control employee behaviors. The acceptance of organisation by the people who work for it depends a great deal on what does it stand for. It is therefore, the companies need to focus beyond the hard aspects on to soft side of the organisation as well. Management ought to put into place values that are ‘relevant to Monday morning’(8). Three important characteristics that companies with strong cultures shares are: first they all stand for something, clear and explicit philosophy. Second, a lot of management attention is paid on fine-tuning these values and finally, these values are widely shared by people across the people in the organisation. For instance, the fundamental character of Caterpillar is captured by the value: ‘24 hour parts service anywhere in the world’ and for Sears Roebuck: ‘Quality at a good price’. Statements like these convey the fundamental essence of the corporation. These clarify what the organisation is set out to achieve and how. They provide guidelines for the people as to what is important and valued by the organisation. The Caterpillar‘s statement about customer service makes it amply clear that the company is committed to providing extraordinary service to its customers. |
Top Study Framework The conceptual framework proposed by one of the thinkers on organisation culture suggests that three levels of organisational culture can be distinguished(9). These levels range from visible artifacts and creations to testable values to invisible basic assumptions. Of these three levels artifacts are visible but often are not decipherable. The basic assumptions are taken for granted and they exist at preconscious level. The values tend to be testable and exist at greater level of awareness. Each organisation faces the challenge of creating and maintaining a culture that drives behaviors into the directions that ensure success and survival of the organisation. Culture acts as glue that sticks together diverse parts of the system into a meaningful whole. For instance Levis Strauss seeks to create an intended culture by expressly articulated and communicated aspiration statement that lays stress on values like new behaviors, diversity, recognition, ethical management practices, communications, and empowerment(10). |
The values reflect underlying beliefs of a person that often are basis of his or her behavior. They define what should be and what should not be. In the context of a family values are often expressly communicated by the elders to the young ones or sometimes they are decoded. Values demarcate what is acceptable and desired for what is not acceptable and undesired. For instance, father may expressly communicate the value of respecting the elders. In the organisational context, values are often conveyed by express communication by the top mangers and also by written and well-articulated mission or vision or annual report statement. Differences may exist between the espoused values and enacted values(11). Espoused values are what members of the organisation say they value and enacted values are reflected in the manner members actually behave. |
The field of study of culture and values is intensely debated. It is widely held that culture can influence the employee behavior and its direction. In the organisational context, culture performs at least four basic functions. First provides a sense of identity to members of the organisation and increases their commitment(12). Second, it enables people in making sense out of events and happenings in the organisation. Culture helps people interpret organisational events(13). Thirdly, culture reinforces values in the organisation. And finally, it serves as a control mechanism by providing norms that guide people behavior. In the context of culture and how it influences the organisational performance three perspectives re proposed: strong, fit and adaptive perspective. It is proposed that companies with a strong culture are likely to perform better than their counterparts that do not have strong culture(14). Strong culture is the one where consensus exists between the members on the values that drive the company with such an intensity that it is even discernible to outsiders. According to fit perspective, culture is good when it consistent with industry’s requirements and firm’s strategy. For instance a culture that values status quo is not well suited for a firm that operates in dynamic environment. Cultures that match and fit with industry conditions enable the managers to make effective decisions. When culture and industry fit does not exist, the firm‘s responses are likely to be deviant form the requirements of survival and growth. Finally, the adaptation perspective, proposes that cultures that help organisations adapt to environmental changes likely exhibit excellent performance. Adaptive cultures are characterised by the values that encourage risk taking and innovation in employees. The leaders in such cultural settings promote change and focuses on changing customer needs. |
In one study of the difference between the firms that were characterised by the adaptive and non-adaptive cultures were found to be very striking(15). Adaptive firms economically performed better than non-adaptive firm. The firms that had adaptive culture had the core values that included care and concern for customers, stockholders, and employees. These firms strongly valued people and processes who could create useful change. While the non-adaptive firms had managers concerned about themselves, their immediate work and some technology or product. Orderly risk reduction was processes were valued more than leadership initiative. |
Given these perspectives on organisational culture, it is amply evident that it is extremely important for an organisation to have strong culture. Achieving financial results in the forms of profits or return on investments is essential for company’s survival but it is not sufficient. If people are expected to put in extraordinary efforts to realize company targets, it is imperative that they identify with them. For this it is important that they must understand what they shoot for but along with this it is even more important for them to know what they stand for(16). |
The literature on organisational culture and company vision and mission makes a strong point about the value of clear and strong formation of culture. At the heart of any culture is a set of values that provide context and guide human behavior. It in this context, companies use mission and vision statements to articulate corporate identity and convey its objectives and values to anyone that comes in their contact. A study of corporate mission and vision statements can reveal what is it that organisations stand for and what is important to them. Accordingly the present study was undertaken with the following objectives:
To study the extent to which business organisations use mission and vision statements. To study the physical structure of vision and mission statements of companies. To study the contents of the vision and mission statements to find out the espoused valued and objectives.
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In order to realize the above objectives, a total number of 200 companies were surveyed on the Internet. These companies figured in the list of ‘India’s most valuable companies’ survey of one of the top most business magazines of India (17). The method to access the vision and mission statement was an Internet based survey in which attempts were made to locate and download these statements for the purpose of content analysis later on. A total of 143 statements were collected. This implied a response rate of little over seventy percent. The firms for which the statements could not be collected were primarily due to the non-availability of the statements on the company sites or downloading problems. The searched companies included primarily four types of businesses the industrial, fast moving consumer goods, services and pharmaceutical companies. |
Top Findings and Discussion Literature on vision and mission amply demonstrates the value of vision and guiding principles that become guides for the human behavior and defining working relationships. Vision helps to shape employee relationships with each other and external publics or stakeholders especially with the customers. ‘The most of the companies worldwide are values-driven. That means a bedrock of common, positive values underlies the thinking and the creativity of everyone in those organisations (18). The history is replete with examples of how various leaders were able to charge common men and inspire revolutionaries out of them for a compelling vision. The vision of classless society in Russia and vision of free independent India set thousands and thousands on fire for the cause they identified with and dream they wanted to realize. Like a political or social sphere, organisations are also large assemblies of people who without a compelling vision are likely a mass of divergent forces waiting to explode. Without a context, meaning and purpose the work environment is likely to riddled with confusion and chaos. In the context of value of a vision one top manager observed that ’working without a vision is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without having the picture before you’. |
Usage Ever since the thinker began explore the role of the top management beyond crafting the strategy, articulation of vision has become a serious agenda for the top mangers. Some companies give vision a lip service and articulate them just as one of the moves aimed to achieve competitive parity because others in their field also tend to have them. While the others give serious thinking and follow the stated procedure to articulate them. Whatever is the method, vision is a popular method of making a statement of intention with the context of an organisational setting. In order to collect the evidence on the articulation and usage of vision as a means for strategic management one study did a comprehensive study of corporate India(19). Specifically it intended to find out whether and what proportion of companies has formally articulated their visions besides other objectives. In 1996, the study revealed that one out of two companies was using vision as a management principle. Of the 309 companies surveyed only 163 had vision statements and rest of the companies did not have formally articulated vision statement. The number of companies with the formally articulated vision statement has gone up compared with the last study. It seems now more top managers realize the importance of articulating and making it accessible to the people both inside and outside the corporation. Of the total 200 searches that were made over the Internet to access the vision statement of the companies included in the survey, a total of 143 companies were found to be having vision statements. This shows that a little over seventy per cent of the companies did have vision statements. This response is twenty per cent greater than the survey last done in another study. Vision in dictionary terms refers to a vividly described image of what a company wants to be or wants to be known for. Vision, therefore defines the corporate character or identity. Drawing a parallel with branding, developing vision resembles with the task of creating a brand identity statement. The marketing is entered into an era of ’similarity marketing’. Brands proliferate in every product category with virtually identical product ingredients and features. In such a situation the core or fundamental of brand can save the marketer from falling prey to parity syndrome. In such situations it is brand identity lends consistency, meaning and customer connect to the brand. In the absence of brand identity, brand is limited to its product’s physicality and does not go beyond to forge ties with the prospects. Identity defines what is brand? It defines its individuality, goals and ambitions, consistency, values, basic truths and recognition signs(20). It is what adds strengths, character and consistency to the brand. Business corporations are also fast moving into parity similarity trap. Physically the resource structures of firms in an industry do no differ much. It is prompted by new liquidity and mobility of technology, men, capital and other resources. It is in this background like brands, firms have to bank upon the invisibles over visible to cultivate superiority. Corporate vision is one step in this direction of building character and identity to unleash human potential into excellence in performance. Corporate identity can be defined as the way in which an organisation reveals its philosophy and strategy. This is communicated through communications, behaviors, and symbolism. One of the important methods of communicating the identity to both internal and external public is mission statement(21). Corporate character can generate excitement, commitment, interest and loyalty by building strong sense of mission by providing people with meaningful ideal of ‘what the company stands for?’ Structure What should be the physical structure of the mission or vision statement? The literature on the theme does not offer any straight recommendation. Divergent opinions exist on the length of the statement. A small size is recommended for it can be written on a business card. This way it will be easy to remember and memorize, focus attention on a few things, build top of mind of what is important, and would be less intimidating read and imbibe. Many a times, therefore, mission or vision statements are limited to a single sentence or phrase. For instance, multinational like Deere & Company follows the short school by putting its mission as: ‘our mission is to please the customer, pure and simple’. On the other hand, the other view holds that making vision or mission statement too concise may fall short on communicating what it is supposed to. Much may be lost in the distillation process and the end statement may come out as cleaver effort in wordssmithry but may not be meaningful. It is therefore vision should be spelled out adequately and elaborated upon in order to be clear, meaningful and helpful in guiding actions. The vision and mission statements of the companies included in this study did not follow any one pattern. They were found to be both lengthy and short. This means there are followers of both the schools. Some of the brief vision statements that attempted to spell out companies desired position are as follows:
‘Become the world’s favored flat steel products brand’ ‘To be India’s leading integrated glass Co.’ ‘To deliver world class customer experience’ ‘To be most admired pharmaceutical company in India’ ‘To be top five decorative cos. worldwide’. Unlike companies that relied on a few words to state their vision, there is other set of companies that use elaborate statements to convey their intent and identity. In some cases, these statements were signed and attested by the top manager along with the photograph. This lent the personal touch to the statement and ownership. Hence rather than being cold statement on the wall it became vision of the leader. For instance, vision statement of Mak Group (22) bears the signature of the Managing Director :
Five years form now, I see Mak as the best international steel co. in our part of the world. I see Mak emerging as top class engineering company, comparable to the best in the world. A company distinguished by its people, I see Mak Man as a breed apart. A very confident man, believing in himself. A progressive, dynamic man. A man fully committed to his company and to the Mak way. Encompassing all of this, I see Mak as a quality company. Quality that is apparent in every facet of its personality. Quality that transcends products and processes, and enters the heart of every man. I have a deep conviction that all of this is possible and will happen.’ In the similar vein another company’s website describes the vision of its founder as the vision of the whole group. Right next of the vision statement is placed the photograph of the founder. By this method a human face is attached to the vision. It makes the vision personal lends it a human face. “Contribute significantly, to nation building in every economy in which we operate, through infrastructure development, state-of-the-art technology and enhancing environment friendly products and practices, along with Human and capital wealth creation.” ‘My Dharma (Duty) is to Work, so that I can Give.’ Another company Panta (23)had a detailed statement of vision: ‘Panta has been a pioneer in introducing the concept of mega retail stores in India called ’Panta’ for the entire family. In an extremely price sensitive market like India, the Pantal chain of stores, has successful in maintaining the equilibrium between quality and price. …Products that offer real value for money through its chain of Panta stores, the company has brought to the Indian masses an ambience conductive for shopping, and offers customers tremendous convenience to shop. In addition, the superstores also offer a varied range of brands which encompass every aspect of modern dressing in India. …Caters to the entire household To complete the idea of a family store, besides garments, Panta also retails household items, home furnishings, books, infant necessities, toys, music, fashion accessories, etc. …Customer assistance par excellence With Panta, the company believes in providing assistance par excellence to its customers, despite the stores being self-service stores. The company aims to deliver value to the customers through various unique avenues. …. Providing service of customised suits in 48 hours One of the services being tested presently by Panta is unique customised, tailoring of trousers, blazers, and suits, delivered to the customers in 48 hours. …. No question asked exchange policy Another highlight of the Panta service is “No question asked” exchange policy, which allows customers to exchange products within 30 days of buying them, without giving any reason. …. Building long term relationships To further enhance and build long-term-relationships with its customers, Panta offers membership of the “Privilege Club” to its select customers. A of the companies of India’s one of the most respected business houses also described its vision in details by focusing on various important aspects like the leadership, product and world view. The following is the text of the vision statement of the company: “Challenging for leadership in the tea around the world” Challenging… A state of mind throughout the organisation, never being satisfied with the status quo, constantly striving to be better and to do new things, in new ways. And a principle by which we manage our brands in the marketplace, creating relevant differentiation and confidently projecting clear brand identities. Leadership… Not just in size, but more importantly in the eyes of our customers and consumers, through our thoughts, ideas, behaviors, and achievements. Through innovation, which will enable us to build stronger relationships with our existing consumers, reach out to new consumers and keep the category vibrant. Tea… The product scope of our vision, encompassing the widest definition of the category; the production and marketing of black and green teas, specialty fruit and herbal teas, ready to drink teas, teas serving and retailing tea. The World… The geographic scope of our vision; building a global business by leveraging and building our brands and forging partnerships to mutual advantage. Contents: the importance of what is contained in the vision and mission statement stems form the fact that they are powerful tools in achieving two results(24). First, they can influence the behaviors of organisational members. Secondly, they can guide the resource allocation process such that produces consistency and focus. All this is achieved by their ability provide sense of purpose and direction, ensuring that interests of key stakeholders are not ignored, sharpening business focus, by enabling control over employees and promotion of shared values and behavioral standards. These statements declare what organisational philosophy is and are meant to influence both thoughts and deeds of the organisational members. The vision and mission statements along with the guiding principles define what the organisation stands for. The values of world-class companies were found to have six cultural elements in common(25). These elements are: passionate customer focus, continuous improvement, high level of employee participation and empowerment, teamwork and finally ethics and integrity. In another study of North American companies, the statements review revealed certain interest groups(26). The most important stakeholders mentioned in the statements were ‘customers’, mention of customers appeared in more than three quarters of the statement analysed. The second most important group was ‘employees’. About half of the mission statements contained the mention of this group. The other important groups that found mention in these identity or value statements were shareholders, society and suppliers. Further the study presented the respondent mangers with the twenty items that could be part of the mission statements to find out the degree to which these components were contained or specified in their company’s mission statements. Six of the twenty items were found to be clearly specified and these were: organisational purpose, concern for satisfying customers, statement of general corporate goals, statement of values/philosophy, statement of distinctive competence, and concern for satisfying employees. Many prescriptions have been made as to what should be contained in the mission or vision statements. One such framework(27) suggests that four major areas can be the focus of developing a holistic mission statement. These are organisation philosophy, product-market domain or organisation scope, key values, and critical success factors. Organisation philosophy defines the central purpose. It can be gathered through a question like ‘what do we want this organisation to be or what do we want it to stand for?’. This dimension can incorporate issues like the grand design, quality philosophy, and organisation’s role in the society(28). Further it may also include a combination of ‘managerial culture and ethos’, social responsibility and public image(29). The product-market domain in the mission defines the organisational field of operation or business definition. The firm may spell out strategy issues like the market segment, product-service offerings, geographic scope, and technologies to be employed. The third proposed element in holistic mission is organisational values. Mission must clarify the core values, beliefs or principles that would guide the actions and behaviors of the people in the system. Organisational values tend to play key role in building distinctive organisational culture, imparting beliefs and even motivating and appraising employees. The key question in defining organisational values is ‘what does the organisation wants its people to be good at?’ For instance 3M’s core tenet is innovation and Hewlett Packard’s core values include respect for the individual. The last proposed element is critical success factors. It provides an answer to the question ‘what does the organisation needs to be good at to succeed in the market it operates?’ The mission must clarify the bases on which the organisation seeks to build competitive differentiation. These may come in the form of quality, customer service, or scale. It comes close the concept of ‘strategic intent’ as guiding principles in realizing the desired position that the firm wants to achieve(30). The present study was undertaken with a limited scope and focus. The outcomes of the present exploratory study are intended to feed the study that is to follow later. The essential question that the present effort is aimed to seek an answer to is, what is it that corporate mission and vision statements contain and wish to convey to both the internal and external publics. Once a broader perspective is developed, later the insights generated would be put to test on the efficacy of these statements in impacting human behaviors and shaping culture within the business systems. The content analyses of the statements of sampled companies revealed the presence of the following themes: environmental concerns or ecological concerns, corporate citizenship and ethics, people or employee concerns, other stakeholders concerns, customer satisfaction, technology and innovation, corporate ambitions and aspirations, quality policy or orientation and corporate philosophy or core values. Aspirations: this is one of the most common themes featuring the company vision statements. Like the typical warning given by the Bible “where there is no vision, people perish‘, the companies have encrypted their vision of the future state or dream where the company is headed in the aspiration part of the vision statement. This is typically done so that the company does not perish. The common aspirations running across most of the companies in sample included two powerful ends: to be most respected and leadership in the field of operation. A sample of the aspiration part of the vision is as follows:
‘our aspiration is to become a leading creator of shareholder value in the paper industry’ (a leading paper company). ‘our ambition is to be the industry leader in creating value for customers and shareholders. we will be most admired specialty products company in India‘ ‘To be the preferred provider of technology-driven innovative bearing solutions.’ ‘Leadership with trust.’ ‘To be the world’s premier health care company.’ ‘To establish worldwide leadership in mobile coverage system.’ Some companies adopted rather a philosophical approach to defining their aspirations. They defined their reason for being more idealistically. They instead of focusing on immediate and measurable metrics like leadership or being most preferred or wealth creation rather focused on the function that the company sought to fulfill in the larger context of the society through its business. The aspirations here reflect the organisation’s reasons for existence or being. Here the company describes its aspirations more deeply than the obvious reasons for existence like making money or achieving leadership position. The description of the mission in this set of companies is close to the definition ‘core purpose’ proposed by Collins and Porras (31). In this they suggest an effective purpose to reflect people’s idealistic motivations for doing the company’s work. This reflects the higher order role and motivations for doing the immediate activities that company engages itself in like production or marketing of products and services. Few companies in this study followed this approach in describing their mission. These include the following:
‘The Convid Group (name changed) is committed to create a better quality of life for people and furthering the interests of society, by being a responsible corporate citizen.’ ‘To set the standard in helping our customers manage their financial future.’ ‘At the Jam Ta Group our core purpose is to improve the quality of life of the communities we serve. We do this through leadership in sectors of national economic significance, to which the group brings a unique set of capabilities. This requires us to grow aggressively in focused areas of business.’ ‘Contribute significantly, to nation building in every economy in which we operate…. My Dharma (Duty is to Work, so that I can give.’ It is important to note that in this study of vision and mission of Indian companies, the philosophical orientation in the mission was found to be in companies that have had a strong visionary leader. It is his or her concept of business that extends beyond a means to earn money and leadership that tended to find an impression in mission and vision. In our study this has been the case of Tata, Videocon and Hinduja group. But a fewer number of companies followed this approach in articulating their vision and mission. By and large the immediate material goals and objectives like leadership, shareholders wealth, innovation, preferred supplier, etc. dominated the statement of purpose. Core Values: one of the important reasons for the articulation of mission and vision in a business corporation is to define and diffuse a set of beliefs and notions that guide people behavior or the organisation as a whole. Vision and mission convey the values espoused. They communicate in explicit form as to what is important for the organisation and what it cherishes. Often organisations that have strong leader acquire values and cultural orientation of that leader. Such cases include Virgin, IBM, and Hewlett Packard. The personal values of the leaders like Richard Branson, Sir Watson have found way in the corporate way of doing things of the companies they were behind. Such is also true for Indian business house like Tata and Sriram group. It is now well accepted that the vision and mission statements are important tools for shaping the corporate culture. It is therefore expected that they would include important values that would guide people behavior and relationships among them. Theoretical justification exists that companies must incorporate notions, beliefs and values in these statements that reflect current business, market and philosophical reality. If the espoused values are not consistent with the strategic demands made and constraints imposed by the external environment of which the business is a part, the business is likely to suffer. The present study reveals the following espoused values:
Integrity Ethical conduct Corporate citizenship Code of ethics Respect Transparency
The concern for ethical and socially responsible conduct has risen sharply in the last two decades or so. The blatant pursuance of the goals of customer needs satisfaction and lure of profit maximisation has often been responsible for the various ills associated with the corporate conduct of business. Many big firms have been charged with making ‘compromises’ and breaching fundamentals of ethical conduct. These include Coke (contamination), Nestle (Nestle kills babies), Nike (Vietnam unsafe working conditions), Enron and Anderson (window dressing). In some cases the inclusion of ethics in business conduct and high levels of integrity has been a result of call of conscience and in other cases it has been forced upon companies by the external factors such as consumer awareness, governmental legislations and presence of various watch dogs. In terms of business strategy, firms seem to pay systematic attention to positioning themselves as good corporate citizen. It also makes business sense because it is fast becoming hard for organisations to distinguish on the physical dimensions. The parity syndrome is catching on fast. In India one company stands tall in terms of ethical and responsible conduct is Infosys Technologies. In one survey of India’s most respected companies, Infosys stood at the top of heap on core values of belief in transparency, ethics, social responsibility, and environmental consciousness(31). The belief that business is all about making money by all means is being challenged. The Infosys’s example demonstrates that money can be made without compromising on basic human values. Highlighting the importance of values, Azim Premji of Wipro says, ” Respect is important. Every million dollars of profit follows the law of diminishing psychological returns, but respect has incremental returns. What gets respect is living a set of values, creating values for customers, building and organisation people feel excited to work for, consistent performance and being a good citizen(32). Presence of code of ethics or words that draw attention to the concept of ‘what is right’ and ‘what is wrong’ in the vision and mission documents of the companies does signify rise of issues in corporate consciousness that were once considered meaningless in business context. Concern for people: this theme was probably the most frequent occurring dimension in the strategic statements of the companies. The presence of such a dominant concern for the people signifies that top management recognizes and accepts the importance of people in the corporate survival and success. Historically, Japanese firms were once upon a time known to give critical importance to human dimension of the business. Japanese leadership in various business fields is attributable to the excellent human performance in the areas that mattered the most for the competitive success. The Japanese culture focused on harnessing the human potential by creating structure and systems that were based on recognition of people as individuals and not as machines. This seems to be learning coming full circle. The ideas that originated form the land of rising sun traveled to Europe and America are also now visible in the Indian companies. The concern for people in found expression in the following:
Respect for people Concern for people Belief in people Respect and fair play Human potential Professional excellence Dignity, freedom, positive attitude Teamwork, work together Empowerment Employee care People satisfaction
Customer focus or mindedness: the above concern for the people in the system implied the recognition of the belief in the internal customers. Concern for the internal people is essential and an important precondition for the superior organisational performance. But important question is why should people in the business perform to their best of abilities. In theory, a business exists to serve somebody outside the system. In clarifying the business purpose Drucker (33) wrote long time back that the purpose of a business is to create a satisfied customer. The business organisations in the past when they operated in luxurious environments created by isolation and presence of semi monopoly conditions did not pay importance to customer satisfaction or paid lip service to the entire concept of satisfying the ones who take or buy the organisational performance. Jack Smith, CEO of General Motors, once said, ‘Focus everything-all assets and decisions-on your customers. They are the ultimate arbiters of success or failures’. It took considerable time to business corporations to incorporate the word customer into their vision and mission statements. It has been a recent phenomenon, especially when viewed in the context of the over hundred plus years since industrial revolution. The customer has not traditionally appeared in a company’s stated reason for being; shareholders occupied that lofty place (34). But now the organisations seem to be making an attempt to promote customer focus and mindedness at least if one looks at the espoused values enacted in the mission and vision statements. This is compelled by the reasons that most of the present day industries are characterised by overcapacity and fierce competition. Customer focus has become key to getting the organisation behave and create value to which customers say yes. Customers have become new focal point for business this is visible in the corporate communications and vision or mission statements. In order to achieve this, companies have used following expressions:
Customer satisfaction Customer delight Customer dedication Customer commitment Exceeding customer expectations Total customer satisfaction Customer first Customer care Customer relationship
Quality focus: If winning the customers is the goal then the instrument is excellent product quality and service. Now markets are flooded with products and services. This abundance of choice among the products and brands within a product category has made quality as one of important drivers of productivity and profitability. As recently as two decades ago quality was something uncommon among players. One could distinguish itself on the basis of superior product quality and leverage it for competitive superiority. Market players in any industry could easily be stacked on the basis of levels of quality form extremely poor quality to reasonable quality to excellent quality. Some firms had quality focus and some did not. It was primarily due to highly fragmented marketplace and lack of mobility. Not any more, quality form being a powerful competitive weapon is becoming common. It is essential but not sufficient condition to successfully operate in a market. In a growing number of industries, quality has virtually disappeared as a differentiator. It is taken for granted. In such a background, quality needs to be promoted as one of core values governing a business. Unlike the past when quality used to be one of the intermittent initiatives or drives taken off and on as when need arose, presence of quality concern in the vision and mission statements testify the importance attached to quality as one of core promoted values. This was third dominant theme present in corporate vision and mission statements. Companies used the following expression to focus attention on quality:
Continuous improvement Total quality Quality product or service Quality focus Quality excellence Superior product Engineering excellence Best capability To be the best
The inclusion of quality in these statements underscores the importance attached by the top management. It has been elevated to the status of being one of the core values governing the business. It is perhaps to imply that it is not an initiative, or a program, or a function or a department. Rather it is way of life. It is an on going process. It is beyond quality people. It is business of everybody in the business system. Shareholders and stakeholders: historically in the past the most influential stakeholders has been shareholders. Most of the businesses to a great extent acted as an instrument to maximize their return. It is for this reasons businesses were too much focused on profit or surplus generation. The legitimacy of an action or program or strategy was purely judged form the standpoint of it contribution on profit or surpluses. In fact profits and profitability reigned supreme in corporate consciousness. The dominant influence of shareholders often was responsible for the development of profit orientation in businesses. Profits have assumed the role of central value governing all business actions. It is only in the recent times that profit came under scanner and scrutiny as purpose of business. Profit obsession often is responsible for degeneration of business. It leads to goal displacement. Profit is the result and not the rationale of business. This is affirmed by the fact that now customers are increasingly accepted as the most important stakeholders and their satisfaction is the rationale of a busine ss’s existence. But still the importance of shareholders looms large in mission and vision statements of the companies. Firms do seem to focus importance of satisfying shareholders but it is not limited to only shareholders rather it has been replaced by stakeholders in many cases. That is concept of shareholders is extended to include various stakeholders who need to be taken care of in order to survive in the contemporary business environment. But by and large firms tend to focus their attention to shareholders wealth maximisation. The following words drew attention to the importance of performing to produce strong financials:
Consistent financial performance Profits and profitability Financial ruggedness Value creation Exceed shareholders’ expectations Stakeholders’ interest Delight shareholders Maximize stakeholders’ value Concern for stakeholders Financial performance
Innovation and risk taking: Even the strong companies that are given to status quo are exposed to a great risk. Markets now do not work and behave in predictable and stable fashion. Thus in a rapidly changing and unpredictable marketplace equilibrium is disturbed by innovations form unexpected quarters. The domain of innovation that earlier used to be confined to product or process is large seen form a larger context. Mere innovativeness in the product or production area is not sufficient. Accordingly innovation or innovativeness must percolate the entire organisation. Marketing innovations are now what distinguish a superior performer form the mediocre performer. Companies like Hindustan Lever, ITC, and TVS are attempting to create breakthrough by ‘out of box’ non-incremental endeavors. In this study the perceived importance of innovation and entrepreneurial culture is visible through the expressions that appear in vision and mission statements. The theme of innovation, creativity and risk taking was common across a large number of companies in the sample. The following words conveyed the intent of the companies:
Innovation Risk taking Creativity Innovative products Entrepreneurship
Corporate social responsibility: myopic assessment of goal and roles of business corporations has been a primarily reason for their one sided glorification. Business entities are now scrutinised using a holistic perspective, especially in the context of their impact on society and environment. The area of social responsibility involves a concern for the consequences of a person’s or institution’s acts as they might affect the interests of others. Corporate social responsibility is seriously considering the impact of the company’s actions and operating in a way that balances short-term profit needs with society’s long-terms needs, thus ensuring the company’s survival in a healthy environment (35). The increased awareness and consciousness in customers and other publics is a primary driver in forcing companies to look beyond immediate sales and profits and incorporate policies and goals of betterment of society and ecologically consistent behaviors. Until 1960s business was seen with a limited perspective of profit generation and customer satisfaction. But now good companies admit their responsibility to general public and environment. Such concerns were also found to be present in companies’ vision and mission statements of Indian companies. The following expressions appeared in these statements:
Social responsibility Community development Social welfare Value to society Responsible citizen Safety and health Concluding Remarks
Ten years ago, when the Indian business environment was making a transition form a close and protected economy, in a study(36) I set out to find out it effect on companies operating in India by using a similar methodology. One of devises that top management can use to signal their priorities and concerns is Chairman’s speech. Accordingly for a sample of companies Chairman’s speeches were studied. The findings did establish a connection between the new emergent business environment and business consciousness. The issues included recognition of new business environment, opportunities and threats, need for reorientation and concern for customer satisfaction. This study has been exploratory in nature of develop full perspective on the phenomenon of corporate intentions and consciousness of Indian companies. The outcome of this study is meant to be used as input to the study that is to follow. The presence of mission and vision statements in a large part of sample suggest that they are employed by the companies as a strategic tools to provide answers to fundamental questions as what the company stands for what it seeks to achieve. Also the contents of these statements reflect the realities faced by the business in the contemporary business environment. The dominant themes contained in these statements included the concern for employees or people, customer focus, quality and continuous improvement, financial return, concern for society and corporate citizenship. Top |
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