Developing Mission Statements

Companies are no longer the only organizations thatdevelop mission statements; administrations, hospitals,universities, schools and associations are following. After a phase of euphoria in which true miracles wereexpected, mission statements have come underincreasing critique for their moralizing overtones. Byapplying new approaches from organizational research,this book shows how thedevelopment and disseminationof missionstatements can be arranged in sucha way that two seemingly contradicting goals areachieved. On the one hand the management of theorganization’s “display side” to the outside world canbe supported, on the other hand new room can becreated for the analysis of the unavoidable structuralconflicts that emerge in organizations.

Stefan Kühl is professor of sociology at the University of Bielefeld in Germany and works as a consultant for Metaplan, a consulting firm based in Princeton, Hamburg, Shanghai, Singapore, Versailles and Zurich.